1 


BV  639  .B7  H9  1914 
Hughes,  Edwin  Holt,  1866- 
A  boy's  religion 


BOOKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


THANKSGIVIMG   SERMONS. 

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A  BOY'S  RELIGION 


BY 


MAY    H   1915 


yy 


EDWIN  HOLT  HUGHES 


ONE  OF  THE  BISHOPS  OF  THE 
METHODIST  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH 


THE  METHODIST  BOOK  CONCERN 

NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  1914,  by 
EDWIN   HOLT    HUGHES 


TO  MY  FRIEND  IN  YOUTH  AND  MANHOOD, 
THE  REVEREND   MILLARD  PELL, 

AN  EXEMPLAR  OF 
A  BOY'S  RELIGION, 
A  MAN'S  RELIGION, 

A  PASTOR'S   RELIGIOUS  INTEREST  IN   BOYS. 


CONTENTS 
PART  ONE— THE  BOY 

PAGE 

I.  The  Real  Boy 15 

II.  A  Boy's  Seeking 20 

III.  A  Boy's  Working 25 

IV.  A  Boy's  Experience 31 

V.  A  Boy's  Carelessness 37 

VI.  A  Boy's  Consistency 41 

PART  TWO— THE  PARENT 

VII.  Evangelistic  Parents 49 

VIII.  Evangelistic  Atmosphere 54 

IX.  Evangelistic  Unity 59 

X.  Evangelistic  Good  News 64 

XI.  Evangelistic  Warnings 69 

XII.  Evangelistic  Intercession 75 

PART  THREE— THE  PASTOR 

XIII.  Pastoral  Foresight 83 

XIV.  Pastoral  Interest 88 

XV.  Pastoral  Sacrifice 93 

PART  FOUR— THE  TEACHER 

XVI.  The  Teacher's  Character loi 

XVII.  The  Teacher's  Knowledge 107 

XVIII.  The  Teacher's  Purpose 113 


FOREWORD 

The  simple  chapters  that  com- 
pose this  booklet  were  written  orig- 
inally for  the  Classmate  on  the 
invitation  of  the  late  and  much 
lamented  John  T.  McFariand.  The 
Publishers  and  Book  Editor  have 
requested  that  the  articles  be  placed 
in  one  voltmie.  Although  the  au- 
thor did  not  write  them  with  the 
intent  that  they  should  form  a  small 
book,  he  yields  cheerfully  to  the 
request. 

The  reader  will  please  bear  in 
mind  that  the  writer  has  not  sought 
to  produce  a  scholarly  and  scientific 
treatise.  That  side  of  the  general 
subject  has  stimulated  much  recent 
writing;  and  just  now  there  is  small 
need  that  additions  be  made  either 
to  its  amoimt  or  to  its  excellence. 

9 


10  FOREWORD 

The  only  claim  for  this  contribu- 
tion is  that  it  is  human  and  prac- 
tical— and  that  the  method  admits 
of  a  certain  warmth  and  intimacy 
of  discussion.  The  claim  might  like- 
wise be  made  that  the  writer  has 
walked  all  the  paths  that  the  book- 
let suggests — ^having  been  a  Boy,  a 
Man,  a  Parent,  a  Pastor,  and .  a 
Teacher.  He  would  not  deny  that 
the  chapters  have  grown  out  of 
experience  and  that  they  contain 
not  a  little  hidden  autobiography. 
Nor  would  he  deny  that  he  has 
largely  avoided  the  technical  theo- 
logical vocabiilary.  He  entertains  the 
profound  conviction  that  the  future 
theology  will  keep  the  essentials  of 
the  past  theology,  but  that  it  will 
be  cast  less  in  the  forms  of  the 
Roman  Courtroom  and  more  in  the 
forms  of  the  Home  and  Family. 


FOREWORD  II 

The  author's  sufficient  reward  will 
be  gained  if  any  boys  are  led  by 
this  modest  little  book  into  loving 
and  serving  relations  with  Him 

"Whose  years,  with  changeless  virtue 
crowned, 
Were  all  alike  divine." 

Edwin  Holt  Hughes. 
Episcopal  Residence, 
San  Francisco, 
July  27,  1914. 


PART  ONE 
THE  BOY 


I.  THE  REAL  BOY 
There  are  two  kinds  of  boys. 
One  kind  you  meet  on  the  streets 
and  in  the  homes;  the  other  kind 
you  meet  in  the  books  or  in  the 
speeches  of  some  kindly  people.  Of 
course  the  boys  you  meet  on  streets 
and  in  homes  are  not  all  alike;  and 
those  you  meet  in  books  and  speeches 
are  not  all  alike.  But  the  real  boy 
must  be  found  in  real  life,  if  he  is 
ever  found  at  all.  Little  Lord  Faun- 
tleroy  is  fine,  I  guess;  and  we  rather 
enjoy  reading  about  him.  Yet  it 
would  not  be  well  for  us  to  suppose 
that  boys  usually  act  and  speak  as 
does  this  beautiful  little  fellow  in 
the  novel. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  may  be 
that  the  boy  in  the  book  is  rougher 
than  the  boy  on  the  road.  Huckle- 
berry Finn  is  as  interesting  in  his 
way  as  Little  Lord  Fauntleroy  is  in 
15 


i6        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

his.  I  think,  however,  that  those 
of  us  who  v^ere  boys  once  or  who 
are  boys  now  would  say  that  the 
usual  boy  is  unlike  Fauntleroy  and 
unlike  Finn.  He  is  not  as  fond  of 
handling  dead  cats  as  "Huck*'  was, 
nor  is  he  apt  to  call  his  mother 
"dearie"  all  the  time,  as  Fauntleroy 
did.  He  is  not  an  angel  and  he  is 
not  an  imp. 

So  what  a  man  says  about  a  "Boy 
and  His  Religion"  will  all  depend 
on  where  the  man  finds  the  boy. 
He  may  find  the  boy  in  his  mind. 
Sometimes  boys  "make  up"  stories 
about  men ;  and  I  suspect  that  some- 
times men  make  up  stories  about 
boys.  It  may  be  that  they  want 
to  believe  that  boys  are  so  and  so 
because  they  have  made  up  a  story 
about  boys  that  they  would  like  to 
prove  true.  When  Charles  Dickens 
was  alive,  he  used  to  say  that  he 
knew  men  who  did  that.  You  will 
remember  that  one  man  in  Dickens' 


THE  BOY  17 

book  said  that  Oliver  Twist  was  "an 
article  direct  from  the  maniifactory 
of  the  devil  himself."  That  was  a 
pretty  mean  thing  to  say  about  a 
boy.  The  man  who  said  it  did  not 
study  Oliver  Twist  first;  he  studied 
a  doctrine  about  all  boys  first.  Then 
he  wanted  to  believe  that  Oliver 
Twist  was  one  more  proof  that  what 
he  thought  about  boys  was  true. 
This  was  not  fair  to  Oliver;  nor 
was  it  fair  to  all  the  other  boys. 

Then  again,  an  author  or  a  speaker 
may  think  that  he  finds  the  boy 
almost  in  heaven.  James  Whitcomb 
Riley  makes  'The  Hired  Man"  say, 

"I  believe  all  children's  good 
Ef  they're  only  understood." 

There  is  a  truth  in  this  pretty  and 
kindly  couplet,  but  it  needs  to  be 
handled  'Vith  care."  This  is  espe- 
cially so  when  boys  become  older 
and  more  responsible.  Once  I  heard 
a  man  talk  about  boys  as  if  they 


1 8        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

were  all  saints.  He  claimed  really 
that  boys  were  bad  only  when  older 
people  made  them  bad.  The  boys 
who  heard  the  man  say  all  these  nice 
things  about  them  seemed  pleased, 
but  I  really  think  that  they  knew 
better.  If  you  could  have  gotten 
them  to  tell  all  they  knew  about 
themselves  and  all  they  knew  about 
other  boys,  they  would  have  said 
that  the  man  who  was  talking  meant 
well,  only  he  did  not  know.  If 
we  think  honestly  about  our  past, 
we  shall  say  that,  while  at  the  very 
earliest  period  the  poet  could  make 
us  say, 

"And  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 
From  God,  who  is  our  home," 

directly  we  began  to  carry  about 
with  us  some  other  clouds  that  were 
not  so  glorious  after  all. 

This  means  that  the  only  way  to 
know  the  truth  about  boys  is  to 
know  boys.     The  man  who  studies 


THE  BOY  19 

science  is  always  telling  us  that  you 
must  not  get  your  belief  first  and 
then  try  to  find  a  lot  of  facts  to 
prove  that  your  belief  is  true,  but 
that  you  must  get  your  facts  first 
and  then  get  your  belief  out  of  your 
facts.  This  rule  is  as  good  for  find- 
ing out  about  a  boy's  religion  as  it 
is  for  finding  out  about  a  boy's 
body.  You  can  find  out  about  a 
boy's  religion  only  by  going  where 
the  actual  boy  lives.  I  knew  a  boy 
once  who  would  not  play  baseball. 
If  I  should  know  only  that  one  boy, 
I  should  make  a  big  mistake  about 
boys. 

So  if  I  wanted  to  know  about 
boys,  I  would  not  hear  what  the 
mother  of  Little  Lord  Fauntleroy 
thought,  and  then  say,  "That  settles 
it";  nor  would  I  want  to  know  what 
the  foster-mother  of  Huckleberry 
Finn  thought,  and  then  say,  "That 
settles  it."  I  would  prefer  to  hear 
what  fifteen  or  twenty  fathers  and 


20        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

mothers  thought,  and  even  then  I 
would  want  to  know  the  boys  my- 
self and  to  be  very  sure  that  every 
one  of  them  was  just  a  plain,  every- 
day, natural,  and  normal  boy. 

It  is  this  sort  of  a  boy  that  we 
are  going  to  study  in  these  chapters 
about  "The  Boy  and  His  Religion." 
We  shall  find  him  in  a  good  many 
places  and  we  shall  ask  him  to  tell 
us  about  himself  and  how  he  feels 
and  what  he  does  about  God. 


II.  A  BOY'S  SEEKING 

The  boy  of  whom  I  am  now 
writing  was  a  real  boy  in  the  sense 
that  he  existed,  but  an  unreal  boy 
so  far  as  the  way  he  acted  was 
concerned.  I  hold  this  to  be  sure: 
that  God  wants  us  to  be  genuine. 
Whenever,  therefore,  we  act  a  part 
in  religion,  we  really  cease  to  be 
religious  at  all.  The  point  of  this 
article,  and  of  the  one  to  follow  it. 


THE  BOY  21 

will  be  that,  if  we  seek  religion, 
that  is,  if  we  seek  to  be  converted, 
or  if  we  seek  to  do  religious  duties, 
that  is,  to  live  the  Christian  life, 
God  wants  us  to  be  our  real  selves. 

This  boy  did  not  do  this.  When 
he  came  to  seek  religion,  he  acted. 
So  I  fear  that  he  did  not  find  what 
he  thought  he  was  seeking.  As  I 
remember  him,  he  was  not  a  par- 
ticularly bad  boy.  His  first  name 
was  William,  but  we  never  called 
him  that.  I  must  admit  that  he 
did  not  have  a  very  good  chance 
at  home.  There  were  some  reports 
in  the  town  about  his  father  that 
made  me  think  that  he  was  not 
as  good  a  man  as  he  shoiild  have 
been.  I  remember  hearing  that 
sometimes  this  father  came  home 
drunk,  and  I  do  know  that  he  used 
bad  language.  The  boy*s  father 
probably  did  not  give  the  boy  a 
fair  chance  to  do  the  right  thing. 

I  do  not  recall  the  boy's  mother. 


22        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

I  guess  that  she  was  a  good  woman, 
but  I  think  that  if  she  had  been  a 
reHgious  woman  I  would  have  re- 
membered that  fact.  The  boy's 
people  were  not  rich.  They  lived 
in  a  small  house.  The  boys  did  not 
go  to  school  very  long.  When  they 
were  quite  yoiuig  they  dropped  out 
and  went  to  work.  This,  I  think, 
is  another  proof  that  this  boy  did 
not  have  a  very  good  chance. 

In  one  respect  the  boy  did  have 
a  good  chance.  He  went  to  Sunday 
school  and  church,  and  there  he 
heard  about  good  things.  I  do  not 
know  why  he  went.  Perhaps  it  was 
because  his  parents  wanted  him  to 
do  so.  It  may  be  that  he  went 
because  he  wanted  to  be  with  "the 
other  boys." 

Now  directly  there  came  a  revival 
meeting  at  the  church.  Every  eve- 
ning special  services  were  held.  Our 
Sunday  school  teachers  wanted  us 
all  to  attend.     The  preacher  would 


THE  BOY  23 

preach  and  tell  us  what  God  wanted 
us  to  do,  then  he  would  ask  us  to 
come  forward  and  kneel  at  the  altar 
and  seek  to  have  our  sins  forgiven. 
We  were  told  that  God  would  give 
us  new  hearts  and  that  he  would 
help  us  to  do  right. 

One  evening  this  boy's  big'brother 
went  to  the  altar.  This  big  brother 
had  many  bad  habits.  He  was 
somewhat  like  his  father.  He  would 
get  dnmk,  tell  foul  stories,  and  use 
profane  language.  He  surely  did 
need  to  be  converted.  I  suppose 
that  when  he  went  to  the  altar  he 
was  sincere  and  wanted  to  lead  a 
better  life;  and  I  judge  that  when 
the  little  fellow  saw  his  big  brother 
go  forward,  it  touched  his  heart  and 
he  went  forward  too.  I  was  sitting 
just  where  I  could  see  both.  I 
was  glad  that  they  had  gone  to  the 
altar,  even  though  I  had  not  gone 
myself. 

Soon  the  older  brother  began  to 


24        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

groan  and  pray  aloud.  Doubtless 
he  felt  quite  wicked.  I  think  that 
he  ought  to  have  felt  that  way. 
He  would  roll  his  head  from  one 
side  to  the  other,  just  as  if  he  were 
suffering  greatly.  The  small  brother 
saw  what  the  big  brother  was  do- 
ing and  he  did  the  same.  I  can 
recall  now  that  I  did  not  like  that 
in  the  least.  I  felt  that  the  big 
brother  ought  to  act  in  his  natural 
way  in  getting  religion,  and  that  the 
little  fellow  ought  to  act  in  his 
natural  way. 

I  cannot  now  remember  whether 
both  the  brothers  claimed  to  be  con- 
verted. I  do  know  that  the  little 
brother  did  not  turn  out  very  well. 
A  few  years  ago  I  visited  the  town 
where  he  had  lived  as  a  boy.  The 
older  brother  was  dead.  He  had 
killed  himself  long  since  by  drink- 
ing rum.  The  younger  brother,  they 
told  me,  was  living  in  an  adjoining 
town.    He  was  not  a  good  man,  and 


THE  BOY  25 

it  looked  as  if  he  would  not  live 
much  longer  himself. 

When  I  heard  all  this  I  could 
not  help  wondering  how  the  younger 
brother  would  have  turned  out  if  he 
had  sought  Christ  in  his  own  boy- 
ish way.  Boys  are  great  imitators, 
they  tell  us.  But  I  am  certain  that 
they  should  be  very  careful  indeed 
never  to  imitate  in  religion  in  such 
a  way  as  to  act  an  untruth. 

It  is  my  conviction  that  God 
comes  to  all  who  seek  him  in  spirit 
and  in  truth.  I  fear  that  he  will 
find  it  difficult  to  come  to  those  who 
do  not  seek  him  in  that  way.  The 
moral  is  that  the  boy  should  seek 
Christ  in  a  boy's  way. 

III.  A  BOY'S  WORKING 

Our  last  chapter  told  of  a  boy 
who  tried  to  be  converted  as  if  he 
were  a  man.  Whenever  a  boy  tries 
to    do    that,    I    fear    that    he    does 


26        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

not  get  converted  at  all.  Now  we 
shall  tell  of  a  boy  who  tried  to  do 
Christian  work  as  if  he  were  a  man. 
And  when  a  boy  tries  to  do  that, 
I  fear  that  he  really  does  not  do 
any  work  at  all.  He  goes  through 
a  man's  motions,  but  he  does  not 
do  even  a  boy's  work. 

This  boy,  I  judge,  was  ten  or 
eleven  years  of  age.  He  would  arise 
in  the  meetings  and  tell  how  much 
he  wanted  to  do.  He  would  say 
that  his  heart  was  heavy  for  some 
of  the  people  of  the  town.  He 
seemed  to  feel  that  God  had  made 
him  responsible  for  the  conversion 
of  the  older  people  in  that  place. 
He  was  just  like  a  little  old  man 
who  had  been  made  a  dwarf  by 
carrying  loads  that  were  too  heavy 
for  him.  His  talk  was  old;  his 
manner  was  old;  his  spirit  was  old. 
He  did  not  seem  like  a  boy  at  all. 
Somehow  I  felt  then  that  he  was 
not   doing   what    God   wanted   him 


THE  BOY  27 

to  do;  for  I  am  sure  that  God  does 
not  want  a  boy  to  be  a  man,  and 
to  carry  a  man's  biirdens  too  soon. 

I  heard  many  years  afterward 
that  this  boy's  big  desire  to  do 
God's  work  in  making  the  people 
of  that  town  better  did  not  con- 
tinue after  the  boy  became  a  man. 
Somehow  I  was  not  surprised.  One 
other  boy  in  that  church  is  now  a 
successful  missionary  in  a  foreign 
country.  Another  is  one  of  the  well- 
known  preachers  in  this  land.  Sev- 
eral others  are  faithful  members 
and  workers  in  that  same  church. 
All  these  were  living  as  natural  boys, 
while  this  little  fellow  was  trying 
to  act  like  a  man.  The  other  boys 
did  not  Hke  him  very  well;  and  I 
know  that  some  of  the  older  people 
must  have  felt  that  the  boy  was 
not  quite  himself.  Certainly  God 
would  ask  nothing  more  than  that 
a  boy  should  be  a  boy  at  his  best 
and   that   he   should   do   only  such 


28        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

work  as  would  natiirally  belong  to  a 
boy. 

Do  you  remember  that  story  in 
the  Bible  about  David's  trying  to 
fight  in  the  armor  of  Saul?  David 
was  still  young;  Saul  was  older  and 
bigger.  David  had  sense  enough  to 
see  that  the  only  way  for  him  to 
fight  was  with  the  weapons  that  he 
himself  could  use.  In  the  war  time 
a  man's  heavy  gun  would  quickly 
tire  a  boy  to  death 

And  have  you  ever  read  in  a 
book  of  history  about  those  little 
people  who,  fully  seven  hundred 
years  ago,  thought  that  they  ought 
to  be  soldiers  and  ought  to  help 
take  the  places  where  Jesus  lived 
and  died  away  from  the  enemies  of 
Jesus?  Suppose  you  find  the  right 
book  and  read  a  little  bit  about 
"The  Children's  Crusade."  It  is 
really  the  story  of  some  boys,  and 
of  some  girls,  too,  who  tried  to  do 
what  only  men  could  do.    Nearly  all 


THE  BOY  29 

of  them  died  on  the  plains — of 
hunger  and  heat — and  their  small 
bones  marked  all  the  ways  of  travel. 
It  was  all  a  very  sad  story,  and  I 
believe  that  a  sad  story  is  always 
written  whenever  children  try  to  do 
the  work  of  men. 

In  America  we  are  now  trying  to 
stop  what  we  call  ''child  labor.'* 
For  a  long  time  little  children  have 
been  hired  to  do  what  only  full- 
grown  men  and  women  should  do. 
Nearly  two  million  boys  and  girls 
have  been  working  in  mills  and  fac- 
tories when  they  should  have  been 
going  to  school  or  playing  in  the 
fields.  There  are  now  many  thou- 
sands of  good  people  who  say  that 
all  this  must  be  stopped  because 
they  know  that  it  is  wrong  to  make 
little  people  do  the  work  of  older 
people. 

You  will  notice  how  natural  are 
the  children  in  the  Bible.  Read 
about  the  boy  that  picked  up  arrows 


30        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

one  day  for  Jonathan  and  so  helped 
to  save  the  life  of  David;  or  read 
about  the  little  girl  that  told  Naa- 
man  how  he  could  be  cured  of  his 
sickness;  or  find  the  story  of  the 
way  Samuel  lived  and  worked  in  the 
temple,  helping  the  old  priest,  and 
wearing  proudly  the  coat  that  his 
mother  brought  him  once  each  year; 
or  read  again  about  the  little  boy 
that  aided  Jesus  to  perform  the 
miracle  of  the  loaves  and  fishes;  or 
read  the  tale  of  Saint  Paul's  nephew, 
who  saved  his  uncle's  life  by  using 
his  wit  as  a  yoimg  fellow  well  could. 
You  will  search  the  Bible  all  through 
without  finding  where  any  boy  was 
told  to  do  a  man's  religious  work. 
God  ■  wants  boys  to  be  boys.  He 
did  not  ask  Moses  or  Paul  or  any 
of  the  other  heroes  of  the  Scriptures 
to  do  men's  work  until  they  were 
men.  Even  Jesus  did  not  preach 
imtil  he  was  thirty  years  of  age. 
He  was  simply  a  boy  in  Nazareth, 


THE  BOY  31 

doing  the  will  of  his  parents,  and, 
so,  the  will  of  God. 


IV.  A  BOY'S  EXPERIENCE 

In  order  to  make  more  real  what 
has  been  said  in  the  three  previous 
letters,  I  am  asking  a  boy  to  tell 
us  what  he  himself  did  and  how  he 
felt.  This  boy,  let  me  confess,  is 
now  a  man,  and  he  is  much  in- 
terested in  religious  things.  From 
what  I  know  of  him  I  can  say  that 
he  was  quite  a  normal  boy,  even 
as  he  is  now  a  normal  man.  I  told 
him  that  he  must  speak  frankly; 
and  this  is  just  about  what  he  said: 

"My  father  and  mother  were  very 
religious  people.  They  took  me  to 
church  regularly.  They  made  me 
attend  Sunday  school.  Sometimes 
they  took  me  to  prayer  meeting. 
They  had  family  prayers  once  each 
day.  They  were  Puritans  in  their 
thought  of  life.     They  lived  simply. 


32        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

and  they  had  nothing  to  -do  with 
any  form  of  'worldly  amusements,' 
as  they  always  called  them.  Yet 
they  were  not  morose,  and  our  home 
life  was  full  of  cheer  and  occasionally 
of  fim.  My  father  was  a  hearty 
laugher,  while  my  mother  had  a 
quick  sense  of  himior. 

''All  my  earliest  impressions  of 
the  Christian  life  were  good.  I  said 
my  prayers  always  before  going  to 
bed  at  night.  Sometimes,  when  I 
forgot  to  do  this,  I  would  be  a  little 
troubled  in  my  conscience,  and  I 
would  get  out  of  bed  and  kneel  to 
pray,  even  when  the  night  was  cold. 
I  recall  when  I  first  found  out 
that  there  were  some  people  in  our 
neighborhood  who  did  not  confess 
Christ  and  did  not  go  to  church  or 
have  an3rthing  to  do  with  its  life 
and  work.  I  felt  sorry  for  these 
people,  and  I  could  not  understand 
why  they  should  be  so  foolish.  I 
felt  especially  sorry  about  one  man 


THE  BOY  33 

who  seemed  so  pleasant  and,  in  gen- 
eral, so  good  and  kindly,  that  he 
quite  puzzled  me.  I  used  to  pray 
that  he  might  become  a  Christian. 
So  far  as  I  knew,  he  never  became 
one.    That  puzzled  me  too. 

"But,  although  I  felt  this  way 
about  the  Christian  life,  I  somehow 
got  the  idea  that  I  was  not  myself 
a  Christian.  As  I  review  it  all  now, 
this  was  because  I  heard  the  preach- 
ers say  so  much  about  the  new 
birth.  I  was  not  aware  that  I  had 
been  bom  again.  In  the  section 
where  I  lived  men  and  women  were 
often  converted  after  much  loud 
praying,  and  then  sometimes  they 
shouted  joyfully.  I  wanted  to  be 
converted  like  that.  So  while  I  was 
still  young  I  went  to  the  altar  and 
tried  hard  to  be  converted  in  a 
special  way.  I  did  everything  that 
I  thought  a  boy  could  do,  but  I 
felt  no  such  experience  as  I  heard 
the  older  people  describe.    After  long 


34       A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

seeking  I  became  discouraged  and 
ceased  going  to  the  altar.  But  I 
did  join  the  church.  I  think  that 
helped  me  very  much.  It  kept  me 
from  doing  many  things  that  I  fear 
I  would  have  done  otherwise.  I 
have  always  been  glad  that  I  had 
this  restraint  upon  me;  and  because 
of  my  own  experience  I  rejoice  when 
I  see  young  boys  joining  the  church. 
Several  years  later  I  was  converted, 
though  not  without  having  gone  off 
'into  the  world'  a  little  distance  ere 
I  came  back  again.  This  second 
time  I  went  to  the  altar  again. 
But  I  sought  simply  to  get  my 
will  into  right  relations  to  God  and 
his  purposes.  I  did  not  gain  any 
great  and  sweeping  emotions. 

"In  the  earlier  years  I  did  not 
do  any  Christian  work,  as  such.  I 
did  try  sometimes  to  keep  other 
boys  from  doing  certain  evil  things; 
and  in  one  or  two  revival  meetings 
I  sought  to  get  some  young  people 


THE  BOY  35 

to  come  to  Christ.  Yet  I  did  not 
know  just  how  to  do  any  real  work, 
and  I  always  had  a  fear  that  I 
would  seem  'pert'  if  I  tried  to  talk 
of  their  religious  duty  to  people  who 
were  older  than  myself.  After  my 
will  was  surrendered  I  did  some 
personal  work,  particularly  while  I 
was  in  college.  I  think  that  through 
my  four  years'  course  of  study  I 
lived  a  clean  life  and  stood  for  the 
Master  amid  not  a  few  temptations. 
But  my  fervor  of  work  came  as  a 
growth,  and  almost,  as  the  scriptural 
phrase  is,  without  observation.  Now 
for  a  good  many  years  I  have  been 
considered  a  fairly  active  Christian." 
When  I  questioned  him  a  little 
further,  as  our  train  was  speeding 
over  a  Western  desert,  this  man 
said  to  me:  "Well,  I  am  glad  that 
I  managed  to  keep  real  in  my  atti- 
tude toward  religious  matters.  I 
was  religious  as  a  boy  and  I  think 
that  I  kept  true  to  myself  as  I  was 


36        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

then.  Now  I  am  a  man,  and  my 
own  boys  are  growing  up  around 
me.  Above  all  else,  I  want  them 
to  be  Christian  men.  I  do  not 
want  them  to  take  big  religious  work 
too  soon.  Somehow  I  feel  that  their 
main  duty  now  is  just  to  be  clean 
in  their  lives;  to  keep  close  to  the 
church;  to  do  the  small  service  that 
appeals  to  them  naturally;  and  to 
go  on  in  quite  a  normal  way  imtil 
they  are  able  to  make  it  their 
primary  business  to  work  for 
Christ." 

Directly  he  added,  with  a  touch 
of  sadness  in  his  voice:  "One  of 
my  boys  seems  to  be  getting  care- 
less about  religious  matters,  and  I 
am 'afraid  that  family  prayers  and 
church  services  bore  him  a  little  bit. 
Sometimes  I  find  myself  wishing  that 
he  would  get  into  a  good  revival 
meeting  and  get  a  new  start.  I 
want  all  my  children  to  belong  to 
Christ  fully." 


THE  BOY  37 

V.  A  BOY'S  CARELESSNESS 

The  friend  with  whom  I  had  the 
talk  on  the  train  has  two  sons. 
One  of  them  is  still  interested  in 
religious  things.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  urge  him  to  go  to  the  services 
of  the  church.  He  frequently  at- 
tends prayer  meeting.  He  some- 
times speaks  in  the  young  people's 
meeting,  though  this  seems  just  now 
to  make  him  quite  nervous.  He 
plays  tennis,  and  he  is  a  real  boy, 
yet  he  seems  never  to  have  de- 
parted from  sympathy  with  the 
Christian  life.  I  judge  that  his 
temptation  to  do  so  will  come  within 
the  next  two  years.  So  I  have 
written  out  a  letter  which  I  expect 
to  send  him.  Leaving  out  the  strictly 
personal  items,  it  is  about  like  this: 

My    Dear  E :  I   had   a   conversation 

on  the  train  with  your  father  the  other 
day.  I  was  pleased  to  have  him  con- 
firm what  I  had  thought  for  myself — that 


38        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

you  kept  up  your  interest  in  the  church, 
and  that  you  were  still  perfectly  frank  in 
saying  that  you  were  trying  to  lead  the 
Christian  life. 

Now  all  this  makes  me  glad — ^for  your 
sake,  and  for  your  parents'  sake,  and  for 
Christ's  sake.  But  I  know,  both  from  my 
own  experience  and  from  what  I  have 
seen  of  other  boys,  that  a  time  of  special 
temptation  will  soon  come  to  you.  So  I 
am  writing  you  to  be  faithful.  I  do  not 
want  you  ever  to  look  back  on  any  period 
of  yoiu-  life  with  deep  regret.  Some  men 
spend  their  later  years  in  trying  to  fight 
against  what  they  did  in  their  earlier  years. 
Because  I  know  that  this  is  wholly  im- 
necessary,  I  take  the  liberty  of  writing  you 
this  letter. 

Soon  you  will  begin  to  feel  independent. 
You  will  want  to  do  some  things  that  yoiu" 
parents  do  not  approve;  and  you  will  want 
to  do  some  other  things  in  your  own  time 
and  way.  Directly  you  may  begin  to 
think  that  being  a  Christian  means  being 
restrained.  You  will  see  other  boys  doing 
things  that  you  desire  to  do;  and  you  will 
not  like  to  have  your  Christian  life  get 
in  the  way  of  your  pleasure  ^ 

Besides  this,  you  will  begin  to  feel  awk- 


THE  BOY  39 

ward  about  the  formal  things  of  the  Chris- 
tian life.  You  will  prefer  just  a  little  not 
to  sit  in  the  family  pew  with  the  rest  of 
the  family.  It  will  not  be  easy  for  you 
to  go  to  the  Communion.  You  will  be  so 
self-conscious  that  you  will  try  to  avoid 
speaking  or  praying  in  the  young  people's 
meetings. 

Now  I  warn  you  beforehand  about  these 
two  things  because,  if  you  really  under- 
stand them,  and  if  you  get  the  right  atti- 
tude toward  them,  you  will  pass  the  period 
safely.  About  the  first,  the  matter  of 
doing  some  things  that  your  parents  dis- 
approve, let  me  advise  that  you  talk  freely 
with  your  father  and  mother.  They  have 
lived  longer  than  you  have,  and  it  is  fair 
to  suppose  that  they  know  what  is  best 
for  you  still.  And,  as  for  the  second  mat- 
ter, do  not  pay  too  much  attention  to 
your  own  embarrassment.  In  due  season 
you  will  conquer  that,  more  or  less.  The 
one  thing  for  you  to  do  is  to  go  straight 
ahead,  counting  yourself  as  belonging  to 
Christ  and  refusing  to  treat  yourself  other- 
wise. Your  father  tells  me  that  you  have 
seemed  religious  all  along,  and  that  you 
have  had  no  marked  experience  of  con- 
version such  as  you  hear  some  people  tell 


40        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

about.  Do  not  let  this  disturb  you.  Simply 
be  sure  of  your  purpose  to  follow  Christ 
now  and  to  be  true  to  him.  He  will  care 
for  all  the  rest,  and  you  will  find  your 
own  experience  growing  better  and  clearer 
as  the  years  pass. 

For,  after  all,  what  God  wants  is  the 
will  to  serve  him.  Some  of  the  most  faith- 
ful Christians  I  have  ever  known  cannot 
tell  how  or  when  they  were  converted. 
All  their  lives  they  have  loved  Christ,  and 
they  have  had  no  break  in  their  experience. 
In  this  respect  they  have  been  like  Christ 
himself.  If  you  will  simply  follow  Christ 
earnestly,  he  will  see  that  your  experience 
is  exactly  what  it  ought  to  be. 

But  my  special  purpose  in  writing  this 
letter  to  you  is  to  warn  you  against  what 
is  sure  to  happen.  You  will  feel  restrained, 
and  you  will  wonder  whether  you  are 
really,  hving  your  own  life.  Sometimes, 
it  may  even  happen,  you  will  wonder 
whether  you  are  genuine  and  honest.  I 
think  that  every  young  fellow  meets  this 
temptation.  Some  of  the  duties  of  the 
Christian  life  will  become  irksome  to  you. 
But  you  have  discovered  that  you  must  go 
to  school  when  you  do  not  feel  like  going/ 
Even  as  some  day  you  will  be  thankful 


THE  BOY  41 

that  you  were  not  allowed  to  drop  out  of 
school,  so  likewise  some  day  you  will  thank 
God  that  your  parents  held  you  to  the 
church  and  tried  to  keep  you  faithful  to 
Christ.  I  will  guarantee  that  you  will  feel 
just  thus,  if  you  will  follow  the  advice  of 
this  letter. 

Keep  this  letter,  and  in  ten  years  write 
and  tell  me  exactly  how  you  feel  about  the 
Christian  life.  I  am  sure  that  I  can  proph- 
esy what  sort  of  a  letter  you  will  write. 
If  you  ever  want  any  advice,  talk  with 
me,  or,  better  yet,  talk  freely  with  your 
father.  Meantime  we  will  both  commend 
you  to  the  heavenly  Father.  God  bless  you ! 
Your  Friend, 

E.  H.  H. 

VI.  A  BOY'S  CONSISTENCY 

You  will  remember  that  my  friend 
had  another  son  about  whom  he 
was  anxious.  This  son  had  become 
careless  rather  than  coarsely  wicked. 
When  he  came  to  the  time  of  in- 
dependence and  his  father  felt  that 
he  ought  not  any  longer  to  make 
the  boy  do  certain  things,  this  son 


42        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

drifted  out  of  real  sympathy  with 
the  church  and  was  not  outright  in 
expressing  his  purpose  to  follow 
Christ.  I  think  that  he  is  in  a 
dangerous  place.  I  could  scarcely 
justify  myself  if  I  wrote  earnestly  to 
his  brother  and  did  not  write  to 
this  son  too.  My  letter  to  him, 
which  I  really  expect  to  send,  will 
be  about  like  this: 

My   dear   H :   I   have   known   you 

for  a  long  time,  and  I  am  an  old  friend  of 
your  parents.  Indeed,  I  was  at  the  church 
on  the  day  when  your  father  and  mother 
brought  you  to  the  altar  for  baptism.  They 
promised  then  to  do  their  best  to  bring  you 
up  in  the  church  and  for  Christ.  I  know 
that  they  have  tried  hard  to  meet  their 
promise.  You  are  surely  blessed  in  one 
thing:  You  cannot  help  believing  that  your 
parents  are  good  and  sincere  people. 
Charles  Wagner  once  wrote  that  it  was  a 
fearful  disaster  when  a  young  man  ceased 
to  believe  in  God,  and  that  the  disaster 
was  almost  as  great  when  he  could  rio 
longer  believe  in  his  parents!  I  think  that 
Wagner  was  right. 


THE  BOY  43 

And  now  you  will  soon  be  a  man,  your 
"own  man,"  you  say  sometimes.  I  fear 
that  with  nearly  all  boys  there  is  a  time 
when  the  sense  of  freedom  goes  faster  than 
the  sense  of  responsibility.  That  was  the 
trouble  with  the  prodigal  son.  Perhaps, 
without  knowing  it,  you  are  meeting  that 
very  trouble  yourself.  It  is  a  wonderful 
time  in  a  boy's  life.  I  always  tremble  a 
little  when  I  see  it  coming.  You  will  not 
be  angry  with  me  if  I  say  that  I  have 
already  done  some  trembling  for  you. 

.This  is  not  because  I  have  felt  that  you 
were  as  yet  coarsely  unclean.  I  imagine 
that  few  boys  go  wrong  in  that  way — at 
first.  There  is  always  a  lowering  of  ideals 
and  purposes  before  there  is  a  lowering  of 
conduct.  Will  you  pardon  me  if  I  say 
that  you  have  taken  the  first  step?  Al- 
ready your  will  is  much  stronger  for  rebel- 
lion than  it  is  for  obedience.  If  you  were 
as  bent  on  doing  right  as  you  are  bent  on 
having  your  own  way  about  a  few  small 
matters,  you  would  be  a  very  strong  young 
man.  Several  times  lately  you  have  not 
been  at  church.  I  was  not  at  your  home 
when  the  question  came  up,  but  I  think 
that  I  can  tell  you  what  you  said:  "I  don't 
feel  like  going  to-day."    I  know,  also,  how 


44       A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

your  father  and  mother  felt  as  they  went 
off  to  the  service  without  you. 

Of  coiirse,  you  will  say  that  going  to 
church  does  not  mean  everything;  and  you 
may  even  insist  that  it  is  better  not  to  go 
than  to  go  imwillingly.  But  my  point  is 
that  we  all  need  all  possible  help  if  we 
are  going  to  do  right.  If  we  attend  a  serv- 
ice of  worship  and  will  ourselves  into  a 
right  mood  about  it,  there  is  nothing  that 
more  stimulates  our  desire  to  be  right  and 
to  do  right.  In  fact,  I  do  not  think  that 
there  is  any  other  institution  on  earth 
whose  one  aim  is  to  get  men  to  be  right 
and  to  do  right  in  all  respects.  There  are 
other  institutions  that  are  engaged  in  try- 
ing to  make  men  right  in  one  respect  or  in 
several  respects.  The  church,  however, 
tries  to  keep  men  in  the  purpose  to  do 
right  in  all  things.  We  all  need  something 
that  will  deal  with  us  not  as  fractions,  but 
as  whole  numbers. 

So  my  fear  is  that  your  staying  away 
from  that  service  means  more  than  just 
that  one  thing.  It  is  simply  a  step  in  the 
wrong  direction.  It  may  be  followed  by 
many  such  steps  imtil  at  length  you  have 
gone  far  from  that  faith  of  your  child- 
hood which  meant  so  much  to  you. 


THE  BOY  45 

Now,  my  boy,  do  not  fail  to  keep  close 
to  good  things.  You  will  need  them  all. 
Temptations,  of  which  you  little  know  as 
yet,  will  soon  attack  you.  Perhaps  you 
have  yielded  to  some  things  ere  this  about 
which  you  would  not  like  your  father  and 
mother  to  know.  This  is  only  the  more 
certain  evidence  that  you  are  moving  in 
the  wrong  direction.  I  want  you  to  turn 
"right  about  face." 

Do  you  want  my  advice''  I  will  give 
it  anyhow.  Talk  frankly  with  your"parents. 
Heed  some  public  invitation  and  indicate 
that  you  are  determined  to  do  right  and 
to  follow  Christ.  One  fine  thing  about 
a  public  confession  is  that  it  puts  us  where 
we  must  do  right  or  else  go  back  on  our- 
selves. But,  above  all  else,  pray  more 
and  more  earnestly,  and  ask  God  to  fix 
yoiu"  purpose  beyond  recall.  Frankly,  all 
this  is  just  about  what  I  did  when  I  was 
almost  exactly  your  age.  I  was  really 
converted  then,  and  I  became  again  as  a 
little  child.  I  had  no  big  emotions,  but 
God  did  fix  my  purpose  to  do  his  will. 
That,  I  think,  is  always  the  essence  of 
conversion. 

If  you  will  do  all  this,  you  will  be  in 
danger  no  longer.     Perhaps  your  first  im- 


46        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

pulse  when  you  read  this  letter  will  be  to 
tell  me  to  look  out  for  my  own  affairs. 
Your  later  mind  will  be  different.  Ten 
years  hence  you  will  be  glad  that  I  wrote 
you  thus.  Do  not  destroy  this  letter. 
Read  it  over  occasionally.  God  bless  you! 
Your  Friend, 

E.  H.  H. 


PART  TWO 
THE  PARENT 


VII.  EVANGELISTIC  PARENTS 

If  this  subject  shall  seem  pectiliar 
to  anyone,  the  very  fact  that  it 
seems  peciiliar  may  reveal  a  great 
weakness  in  the  evangelistic  work  of 
the  day.  Evidently  ''evangelistic 
parents"  would  be  those  who  sought 
by  all  wise  and  earnest  ways  to 
keep  or  win  their  children  for  Christ. 
Yet  doubtless  our  temptation  is  to 
lay  undue  stress  upon  the  mere 
''ways."  The  School  of  Hearts  must 
precede  the  School  of  Methods.  The 
evangelistic  heart  will  not  only  find 
ways  of  working;  it  will  often  suc- 
ceed in  spite  of  its  ways.  The 
spirit  of  evangelism  will  triumph 
either  through  its  fashions  or  over 
its  fashions. 

Consequently,  we  shall  try  to  ex- 
clude from  this  article  all  discussion 
of  ways  and  means,  save  as  these 
are  deep  and  inner.     The  point  is 

49 


50        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

that  what  parents  get  for  their  chil- 
dren is  likely  to  depend  on  what 
parents  most  want  for  their  children. 
It  is  not  only  true  that  we  do  not 
gather  grapes  from  thorns  and  figs 
from  thistles;  it  is  likewise  true  that 
we  do  not  gather  grapes  from  grape- 
vines or  figs  from  fig  trees  tmless 
our  spirit  sends  us  to  the  vines  and 
trees.  What  we  ask  is  what  we 
get.  What  we  seek  is  what  we  find. 
The  door  at  which  we  knock  is  the 
door  that  opens  to  us. 

So  the  first  question  to  which 
the  parent  must  make  an  honest 
answer  is  this:  What  do  I  most 
desire  for  my  children?  And  this 
answer  is  not  to  be  secured  from 
an  .abstract  query  made  to  one's 
own  heart.  Abstractly,  there  is  but 
one  possible  answer  for  any  parent 
who  has  in  any  degree  the  Christian 
sense  of  values.  There  are  probably 
few  fathers  and  mothers  connected 
with  any  of  our  churches  who  would 


THE  PARENT  51 

not  say  theoretically  that  their  first 
and  greatest  desire  is  that  their 
children  might  be  followers  of  the 
Lord.  In  fact,  often  we  find  parents 
who  are  not  themselves  professing 
Christians,  but  who  still  show  no 
little  anxiety  over  their  children's 
spiritual  welfare  and  no  little  pride 
in  their  children's  consistency  of 
Christian  life. 

Still  it  is  evident  that  the  evil 
powers  that  try  to  seize  our  children 
are  not  to  be  defeated  by  any  good 
theory  that  we  may  hold,  nor  yet 
by  any  spasms  of  effort  to  win  our 
beloved  for  the  good.  An  evan- 
gelistic mood  is  not  quite  an  evan- 
gelistic heart.  An  evangelistic  effort 
is  not  an  evangelistic  habit.  We 
must  not  only  want  our  children  to 
be  Christians,  but  we  must  want 
that  most,  and  we  must  want  it 
all  the  time. 

Surely  it  needs  no  argument  to 
show  that  the  best  and  most  natural 


52        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

evangelist  is  the  Christian  parent. 
Isaac  gets  the  cue  of  the  mono- 
theistic life  from  Abraham.  Lydia's 
children  come  to  baptism  and  faith 
through  Lydia.  Other  evangelists 
come  seldom  and  stay  briefly.  Even 
the  Simday  school  teacher  is  a  sort 
of  weekly  visitor.  The  most  faith- 
ful pastor  is  not  equal  to  the  task 
of  furnishing  the  religious  atmosphere 
for  the  children  of  all  his  homes. 
The  professional  evangelist  does  not 
continue  long  in  one  stay.  The 
parent  is  the  most  constant  earthly 
presence  for  the  child.  The  old 
Eastern  proverb  says:  "God  could 
not  be  ever3rwhere,  and  so  he  made 
mothers."  The  proverb  is  neither 
accurate  nor  impartial,  but  it  does 
state  the  important  truth  that  par- 
enthood has  the  best  chance  for  con- 
stant evangelism. 

Perhaps  this  brief  chapter  could 
do  nothing  better  than  to  insist  upon 
an  answer  to  this  piercing  question 


THE  PARENT  53 

addressed  to  all  parents  who  read 
these  words:  What  do  you  really 
most  desire  for  your  children?  What 
reply  do  you  win  for  this  question, 
not  f.rom  your  occasional  wishes,  but 
from  your  total  and  constant  bear- 
ing toward  your  children?  Have  you 
really  an  evangelistic  heart,  or  is 
your  wish  for  each  child  primarily 
social,  or  primarily  commercial,  or 
primarily  intellectual?  W^here  do 
you  put  the  emphasis  in  your  own  life 
as  it  relates  itself  to  your  children? 
Are  you  God's  chief  evangelist  in 
your  own  home? 

It  is  not  meant,  of  course,  that 
the  minor  interests  are  not  to  have 
their  part.  But  do  you  keep  them 
minor,  or  do  they  become  major? 
If  yoiu:  children  judge  by  the  spirit 
of  your  life  what  you  most  desire 
for  them,  what  judgment  will  they 
be  compelled  to  reach?  Those  who 
most  eagerly  desire  the  coming  of 
the  Lord's  kingdom  and  who  see  its 


54        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

deepest  and  most  far-reaching  lines 
of  influence  will  not  halt  at  saying 
that  there  is  small  hope  for  the 
salvation  of  the  world  unless  we 
shall  raise  up  a  host  of  evangelistic 
parents.  The  Jewish  church  began 
in  the  tent-home  of  Abraham.  He 
who  runs  may  read. 

VIII.  EVANGELISTIC 
ATMOSPHERE 

In  the  last  chapter  we  used  the 
phrase  '  'evangelistic  atmosphere . '  * 
The  words  guide  us  in  a  good 
direction,  and  we  shall  follow  them 
a  little  further. 

There  is  surely  a  difference  be- 
tween an  evangelistic  effort  and  an 
evangelistic  atmosphere.  The  two 
are  not  contradictory,  and  they 
may  act  and  react  upon  each  other. 
An  evangelistic  effort  may  create 
an  evangelistic  atmosphere;  and  an 
evangelistic  atmosphere  is  sure  to 
issue  into  evangelistic  efforts.     Still 


THE  PARENT  55 

we  have  all  known  homes  which 
yielded  occasionally  to  an  evangel- 
istic mood  and  engaged  in  an  evan- 
gelistic effort  and  which,  for  all  that, 
did  not  maintain  an  evangelistic  at- 
mosphere. 

For  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a 
religious  climate.  There  are  arctic 
regions  in  the  spiritual  realm,  re- 
gions so  frigid  that  only  the  hardiest 
plants  have  any  chance  whatsoever. 
And  there  are  tropic  regions  in  the 
spiritual  realms,  regions  so  soft  and 
soothing  in  their  influence  that  they 
grow  naught  but  flabby  woods  and 
dainty  flowers.  This  figure  of  speech 
will  help  us  to  classify  certain  homes. 
Some  homes  wotdd  destroy  any  but 
the  most  vigorous  spiritual  life ;  other 
homes  would  become  mere  spiritual 
hot-houses  and  would  nourish  such 
delicate  spiritual  life  as  would  wither 
at  once  even  upon  transfer  to  a 
temperate  zone,  religiously  speaking. 
All  this  is  a  matter  of  climate. 


56        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

The  figiire  of  speech  is  a  scriptiiral 
one.  The  psalmist  says  of  one  that 
feared  the  Lord,  ^'Thy  children  shall 
be  like  olive  plants  round  about  thy 
table."  He  again  expresses  the  hope 
that  "our  sons  may  be  as  plants 
grown  up  in  their  youth."  Our 
ritual  says  in  one  place  that  only 
those  that  are  ''planted  in  the  house 
of  the  Lord  shall  floiuish  in  the 
courts  of  our  God."  But  can  plants 
grow  in  any  atmosphere?  What  hap- 
pens to  rose  bushes  and  dahHas  when 
they  are  set  out  in  the  Nevada 
deserts?  What  becomes  even  of 
sturdy  oaks  transplanted  to  arid  re- 
gions where  they  reach  down  their 
eager  roots  all  in  vain  for  the  waters 
of  life?  The  efforts  of  cellar  plants 
that  grow  weakly  toward  the  light 
and  air  of  the  one  small  window 
often  suggest  pathos.  We  see  them 
sometimes,  lying  wan  and  bleached 
in  the  semi-darkness,  and  yet  grow- 
ing toward  the  light!     If  only  they 


THE  PARENT  57 

had  the  right  atmosphere,  with  sun 
and  dew  and  rain,  they  would  be 
green  and  fruitful  boughs! 

Now  all  this  does  not  overstate 
what  may  happen  in  very  many 
homes.  The  character  of  parents 
must  furnish  an  evangelistic  atmos- 
phere. This  climate  cannot  be  se- 
cured artificially.  It  may  even  be 
brought  to  its  best  more  or  less 
imconsciously,  so  far  as  the  parents 
are  concerned.  Moses  is  not  apt 
to  be  aware  of  the  shining  of  his 
own  face  when  he  deals  with  the 
children  of  Israel.  And  when  the 
children  of  Israel  move  toward  their 
spiritual  best,  they  are  not  so  apt 
to  be  aware  of  it  either.  They 
simply  feel  at  home  with  its  radiance. 
Yet  the  face  and  character  of  Moses 
will  help  to  make  the  spiritual  atmos- 
phere in  which  they  dwell.  There 
are  fathers  and  mothers  who  are  so 
unaffectedly  religious,  so  beautifully 
and  almost  unconsciously  devoted  to 


58        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

Christ,  that  they  create  a  winning 
religious  atmosphere. 

This  makes  it  less  needftil  that 
they  should  engage  in  any  direct 
evangelism  for  their  children.  Those 
olive  plants  are  in  the  right  soil, 
and  the  sunlight  and  dew  of  heaven 
get  a  fair  chance  at  them.  The 
parents  do  not  need  to  use  their 
own  clumsy  fingers  to  open  petals 
and  to  shape  sepals.  God  makes 
them  the  agents  of  his  own  climate. 
Long  before  the  child  can  analyze 
a  situation  he  can  feel  the  gentle 
pressure  of  that  atmosphere,  and  he 
can  yield  to  its  call  for  life  and 
growth.  The  gardeners  of  the  Lord's 
nursery  will  still  have  to  stir  the 
soil,  *and  lay  the  rows,  and  prevent 
imdue  shade  and  excessive  heat. 
But  the  climate  is  doing  gracious 
work  all  the  time. 

It  is  evident  that  such  a  home 
as  this  cannot  be  secured  by  any 
direct  effort.     It  can  come  only  as 


THE  PARENT  59 

the  kingdom  of  God  always  comes, 
without  haste  and  without  observa- 
tion. It  comes  only  from  the  living 
of  the  life  of  Christ.  This  is  the 
type  of  home  described  by  Robert 
Bums  in  his  " Cotter *s  Saturday 
Night.'*  Such  a  home  represents 
that  house  of  the  Lord  and  that 
court  of  God  wherein  sons  and 
daughters  shall  be  as  plants  growing 
into  grace,  blooming  into  beauty,  and 
fruiting  into  service  for  the  Lord  of 
the  Garden. 


IX.  EVANGELISTIC  UNITY 

In  the  modern  athletic  period  a 
phrase  has  passed  from  the  field  of 
games  out  into  all  the  realms  of  work- 
ing. That  phrase  is  ''team  work." 
It  signifies  imity  of  effort  in  order 
to  secure  victory.  It  likewise  sig- 
nifies a  willingness  to  put  aside  per- 
sonal display  for  the  sake  of  the 
team,  as  when  one  makes  what  is 


60        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

called  a  "sacrifice  hit."  We  shall 
give  the  phrase  as  holy  a  meaning 
as  we  can  well  assign  it  if  we  say- 
that  in  the  home  there  shoiild  be 
team  work  and  that  the  father  and 
mother  should  keep  an  evangelistic 
unity. 

The  Scriptures  assert  the  need  of 
this,  and  the  command  is,  "Be  not 
unequally  yoked  together  with  im- 
believers."  The  Roman  Catholic 
Church  sees  the  point  and  insists 
that,  even  though  a  member  of  that 
church  shall  marry  a  Protestant,  the 
children  shall  be  brought  up  imder 
a  tinity  of  training.  Broad  as  John 
Wesley  was,  he  put  some  things  into 
the  Discipline  that  stressed  the  ne- 
ces^ty  of  wife  and  husband  working 
together  in  the  religious  life. 

It  is  wise  that  the  tmity  shall  find 
an  outward  expression.  Less  and 
less,  as  the  years  advance,  do  we 
find  husband  and  wife  belonging  to 
different   churches.     The  feeling   is 


THE  PARENT  6i 

that  the  children  ought  not  to  be 
confused  in  their  reHgious  ideas.  If 
on  Sunday  the  father  goes  in  one 
direction  to  church  while  the  mother 
goes  in  another  direction,  the  little 
people  can  scarcely  fail  to  be  mixed. 
The  usual  explanations  will  not  suf- 
fice. Only  conscience  should  divide 
a  home  in  this  way;  and  the  child 
will  naturally  feel  that,  if  his  parents 
are  separated  on  a  matter  of  re- 
ligious conscience,  that  matter  must 
be  very  large  and  real.  To  take 
sides  against  either  parent  is  not 
easy.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore, 
to  find  that  usually  the  home  must 
be  united  religiously  ere  there  can 
be  an  evangelistic  unity  brought  to 
bear  upon  the  lives  of  the  children. 

But,  important  as  this  matter  is, 
it  is  not  the  deepest  thing  in  the 
problem.  Without  doubt  parents 
may  remain  separated  in  formal 
church  membership,  while  still  being 
thoroughly    imited    in    their    desire 


62        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

that  their  children  shall  belong  to 
the  Lord.  God  has  ordained  that 
both  halves  of  parenthood  shall  be 
joined  in  order  that  there  may  be 
a  social  unit.  Where  either  parent 
fails  of  the  evangelistic  spirit,  one 
half  of  the  power  is  lost.  It  is 
even  worse  than  this:  the  one  half 
of  the  power  that  seeks  to  work 
works  irnder  obstruction.  Thus  it 
comes  to  pass  that  a  home  that  is 
divided  religiously  is  worse  than  di- 
vided; it  is  cleaved  and  split  into 
more  than  two  parts.  The  jangle 
is  there,  even  though  it  be  not 
noted  by  parents  and  children. 

Now  every  pastor  knows  the  mean- 
ing of  this  description.  He  has  seen 
instances  where  the  hand  of  a  fool- 
ish 'father  or  the  hand  of  an  equally 
foolish  mother  kept  a  child  away 
from  a  profession  of  Christ  and  from 
membership  in  his  church.  It  is 
thus  to  him  a  day  of  gladness  when 
he  sees  a  home  brought  into  religious 


THE  PARENT  63 

unity.  He  knows  then  that  he  has 
not  simply  added  one  more  recmit 
to  the  army  of  the  Lord;  he  knows 
that  he  has  estabhshed  one  more 
training  place  for  the  King's  soldiers. 
He  has  unified  the  most  important 
forces  that  make  for  the  religious 
life  of  the  children.  The  so-called 
solitaire  that  has  two  religious  set- 
tings in  the  family  is  not  a  solitaire 
at  all.  The  doubtful  gems  quarrel 
with  each  other. 

Let  it  be  said  that  too  often  it 
is  the  father  who  fails  to  give  him- 
self to  the  making  of  religious  and 
evangelistic  unity  in  the  home.  The 
mother  of  Zebedee's  children  still 
comes  to  the  Lord  with  her  children 
while  Zebedee  himself  is  absent,  be- 
ing interested  in  other  affairs.  In 
some  measure  this  is  due  to  causes 
too  large  to  be  discussed  now.  But 
it  must  be  due  in  some  measure  to 
the  fact  that  we  do  not  often  enough 
remind  the  father  of  his  evangelistic 


64        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

duty.  The  cradle  of  every  new-bom 
child  is  a  call  to  each  parent  to  put 
life  on  a  holy  basis.  It  is  a  great 
thing  when  an  immortal  soul  is  sent 
into  our  keeping.  If  we  can  put 
deserved  emphasis  upon  that  won- 
derful fact,  every  cradle  will  become 
an  altar  at  which  two  parents  shall 
join  themselves  in  a  holy  imity  of 
purpose  and  work  to  the  end  that 
in  God's  season  all  the  children  shall 
be  led  into  the  Father's  house. 


X.  EVANGELISTIC  GOOD  NEWS 

Does  this  title  seem  strange  to 
any  one?  If  so,  let  us  explain  that 
the  meaning  relates  to  the  manner 
of  telling  the  gospel  rather  than  to 
the  story  of  the  gospel.  The  gospel 
without  doubt  is  a  good  announce- 
ment, a  happy  message,  a  real  evan- 
gel. We  would  suppose  that  its  tell- 
ing would  quickly  fit  itself  to  the 
nature  of  the  truth,  and  that  evan- 


THE  PARENT  65 

gelists  everywhere  would  be  found 
aglow  with  a  large  and  serious  joy. 
The  man  who  brings  good  news 
should  bear  a  face  and  wear  a 
manner  that  comports  with  his  mes- 
sage. The  glad  gospel  shoiild  have 
a  glad  teller. 

Let  no  one  suppose  now  that  we 
are  going  to  omit  the  cross.  The 
gospel  has  its  serious  side.  But 
Jesus,  who  died  on  the  cross,  had 
much  to  say  about  joy.  Even  when 
he  was  within  a  few  hours  of  Cal- 
vary he  spoke  of  the  joy  that  he 
would  give  as  a  legacy  to  his  fol- 
lowers. That  joy,  he  said,  was  to 
be  ''full."  In  agreement  with  this 
word,  our  religion  has  been  a  glad 
religion.  Some  say  that  it  is  really 
the  only  singing  religion.  Its  gen- 
uine followers  in  all  the  centuries 
have  been  people  who  knew  praises 
and  hallelujahs. 

Inasmuch  as  parents  are  divinely 
appointed  evangelists,  they  must  be 


66        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

careful  not  to  lose  the  sense  that 
the  gospel  is  good  news.  Children 
are  just  at  the  age  when  they  are 
seeking  for  happiness.  Life  to  them 
is  very  good  and  very  rosy.  More 
than  this,  they  feel  that  they  are  en- 
titled to  happiness.  Their  elders  feel 
the  same  way  about  the  little  people. 
A  gloomy  child  is  not  of  God's  ap- 
pointing. Whenever  we  see  one  such 
we  feel  that  there  has  somewhere 
been  mismanagement,  or  maladjust- 
ment. Even  when  the  Bible  speaks 
of  little  children  in  heaven,  it  de- 
scribes them  as  playing  in  the  streets 
thereof.  * 'Playing,*'  mind  you!  In 
the  better  coimtry  the  nature  of 
youth  is  taken  into  account.  God 
provides  play  in  the  New  Jerusalem. 
Nor  is  it  trifling  with  sacredness 
to  say  that  parents  must  show  the 
glad  side  of  the  gospel  if  it  is  to 
appeal  to  the  eager  and  bounding 
heart  of  youth.  This  side  cannot 
be  put  to  the  front  by  artifice.     No 


THE  PARENT  67 

father  or  mother  can  say,  'T  will 
now  be  glad  in  order  that  I  may 
show  my  children  how  good  our  re- 
ligion is!"  The  gladness  must  be 
inward,  working  into  outward  ex- 
pression. Parents  must  really  ''enjoy 
religion." 

Sometimes  it  almost  seems  as  if 
they  had  it,  but  did  not  really  enjoy 
it.  It  is  a  restraint,  a  guide,  and 
even  a  comfort,  but  it  is  not  a  joy. 
The  father  speaks  of  it  without  a 
smile.  The  mother  nearly  always 
weeps  when  she  tries  to  give  testi- 
mony— and  her  tears  do  not  seem 
to  be  the  tears  of  gladness.  Doubt- 
less the  expression  is  not  a  true 
indication  of  the  inner  feeling,  but 
the  expression  ought  to  be  just  that. 
We  have  no  right  so  to  set  forth 
our  good  as  to  allow  it  to  "be  evil 
spoken  of."  A  glad  religion  ought 
to  make  a  glad  coimtenance. 

Our  children  must  have  the  gospel 
of    the    shining   face.      None    other 


68        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

will  appeal  to  them  and  claim  them. 
Later  the  emphasis  will  move  toward 
the  serious  side,  and  some  time  it 
will  take  on  the  solemnity  of  eter- 
nity itself.  But  in  the  earlier  years 
the  call  that  persuades  childhood  is 
the  call  of  the  Christ  who  promises 
joy.  If  that  old  tradition  which 
told  that  Christ  was  never  known 
to  smile  were  true,  our  gospel  would 
be  put  at  a  disadvantage  in  its  ap- 
proach to  young  life.  A  smileless 
Christ  would  not  be  the  ideal  for 
youth,  nor  would  a  smileless  messen- 
ger be  the  most  persuasive  repre- 
sentative of  our  Lord.^ 

That  all  this  has  its  relation 
to  parental  evangelism  cannot  be 
doulDted.  The  constant  impression 
of  the  gospel  comes  to  the  child 
from  the  parents.  In  some  ways 
they  are  the  child's  gospel,  or  at 
any  rate  the  Bible  in  which  he 
reads  his  gospel.  A  father  or  mother 
with   a  jaundiced   or   mournful   re- 


THE  PARENT  69 

ligion  is  not  God's  best  teller  of 
his  best  news. 

The  psalmist  saw  this  clearly.  In 
a  passage  of  much  insight  he  offers 
the  prayer,  "Restore  tinto  me  the 
joy  of  thy  salvation,"  and  soon  he 
adds,  ''Then  shall  I  teach  trans- 
gressors thy  way,  and  sinners  shall 
be  converted  unto  thee." 

We  may  be  well  assured  that  if 
this  be  true  of  all  tellers  of  the 
gospel,  it  is  especially  true  of  those 
parents  whose  joyful  behavior  as 
being  themselves  children  of  the 
heavenly  Father  becomes  a  real  evan- 
gelism to  the  children  of  their  own 
homes. 

XI.  EVANGELISTIC  WARNINGS 

It  may  be  that  some  one,  reading 
the  last  chapter,  said,  at  the  close: 
"It  is  true  that  there  is  an  evan- 
gelism of  good  news;  but  there  is 
also    an    evangelism    of   bad    news. 


70       A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

Or,  if  it  is  not  acctirate  to  state  it 
in  that  way,  there  is,  at  any  rate, 
a  very  stem  side  to  evangelism,  and 
this  side  shoiild  not  be  neglected." 
The  suggestion  is  just,  and  we  now 
proceed  to  urge  that  in  any  con- 
sistent and  biblical  evangelism  warn- 
ings must  have  their  due  stress. 

Jesus  did  not  hesitate  to  lift  up 
the  final  warning  in  the  vision  of 
hell.  Without  any  question  what- 
soever, the  Bible  is  not  scant  in  its 
teaching  of  retribution.  Perhaps  we 
have  used  too  exclusively  the  figiire 
of  speech  based  on  "fire,"  because 
that  figure  is  so  vivid.  The  New  Tes- 
tament uses  "darkness,"  and  "filth,** 
and  "worms,"  and  "banishment," 
and^  "prison,"  and  various  other  em- 
blems. Reduced  to  their  very  lowest 
terms,  these  figures  of  speech  must 
have  some  supremely  serious  mean- 
ings. While  the  Scripture  gives  us 
no  right  to  be  dogmatic  about  the 
details  of  future  punishment,  it  does 


THE  PARENT  71 

compel  us  to  present  the  assurance 
that  this  Hfe  bears  on  the  next  life 
in  a  real  and  vital  way. 

Perhaps  in  dealing  with  the  young 
we  are  instinctively  drawn  to  use  this 
teaching  carefully.  Our  Saviour's  ac- 
tual dealing  with  any  little  child 
would  not  give  us  warrant  for  making 
this  appeal  primary.  Still,  we  should 
not  permit  the  child  to  entertain 
any  foolish  delusions.  He  ought  to 
be  impressed  by  the  sure  fact  that 
the  consequences  of  sin  are  lasting, 
as  well  as  with  the  other  fact,  that 
all  our  knowledge  of  this  present 
life  would  lead  us  to  believe  that 
in  the  long  run  condition  will  answer 
to  character.  One  cannot,  philosoph- 
ically or  scripturally  or  experimen- 
tally, avoid  the  conclusion  that  there 
must  at  the  last  be  a  huge  difference 
between  the  dwelling  of  the  bad 
and  the  dwelling  of  the  good.  That 
main  point  may  be  urged  even  on 
childhood.    Notwithstanding  the  cry 


72        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

raised  by  some  persons  in  our  own 
day  about  the  stern  teaching  of 
generations  gone,  most  thoughtfiil 
and  just  adtilts  will  testify  that  a 
doctrine  of  punishment  for  sin  held 
them  away  from  many  wrongs  and 
was  an  effective  factor  in  their  moral 
education. 

But  there  are  some  concrete  mean- 
ings of  this  subject  for  the  present 
life.  In  recent  years  we  have  been 
using  some  of  them  in  scientific 
instruction.  It  may  not  be  a  pleas- 
ant thing  to  show  the  child  pictures 
of  the  human  stomach  and  bowels 
burned  and  blistered  by  the  effect 
of  alcohol;  but  our  laws  in  most 
of  the  States  and  in  all  the  Terri- 
tories compel  just  that  sort  of  teach- 
ing". At  the  present  time  many 
good  people  are  in  doubt  as  to 
the  proper  limits  of  so-called  sex 
education;  but  there  is  all  but  unan- 
imous agreement  on  one  point, 
namely,    that    the    new    generation 


THE  PARENT  73 

must  somehow  be  taught  that  dread- 
ful penalties  follow  after  impurity. 

The  truth  is  that  in  all  depart- 
ments of  our  teaching  the  warning 
element  has  a  large  part.  The 
teacher  tells  of  a  day  of  judgment, 
not  only  represented  by  the  arrival 
of  examinations,  but  represented  as 
well,  and  more  deeply,  by  the  arrival 
of  life's  severer  tests.  All  worthy 
instructors  repeat  at  times  the  sub- 
stance of  our  Lord's  parable  about 
the  wise  and  foolish  virgins — about 
the  danger  of  being  caught  impre- 
pared  for  the  emergency,  and  about 
the  necessity  of  having  the  reserves 
ready  to  bring  out  to  meet  the  crisis. 
The  point  is  that  intellectual  pen- 
alties are  visited  on  intellectual  sins. 

Now,  that  element  of  warning 
must  be  kept  in  our  evangelism. 
We  must  tell  the  youth  not  only 
that  there  are  large  gains  to  be 
sought,  but  likewise  that  there  are 
terrible  losses  to  be  shunned.     Per- 


74        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

sonally,  I  do  not  think  that  it  is 
wise  to  give  our  sons  and  daughters 
the  idea  that  forgiveness  carries  with 
it  the  remission  of  penalty.  That 
threadbare  story  about  the  nails  that 
were  driven  into  the  post  to  repre- 
sent the  boy's  misdoings,  and  that 
were  pulled  out  to  represent  each 
conquest  over  the  particular  sin,  is 
true  to  life.  The  scars  remain  in 
the  post  even  after  the  nails  have 
been  pulled.  The  popular  song  has 
the  truth  of  it. 

The  bird  with  a  broken  pinion 
Never  soars  so  high  again. 

The  gospel  saves  men  from  dan- 
gers that  are  the  most  real.  Our 
children  should  be  earnestly  taught 
that  the  final  goal  of  sin  is  ruin. 
The  soft  prophet  is  not  the  genuine 
evangelist.  Our  doctrine  of  God 
reveals  One  who  will  not  trifle  with 
sin. 


THE  PARENT  75 

XII.  EVANGELISTIC  INTER- 
CESSION 

The  need  of  intercessory  prayer 
in  connection  with  revivals  has  often 
been  tirged.  Pentecost  was  simply 
the  beginning  of  the  great  awaken- 
ings that  have  been  preceded  by 
earnest  and  long-continued  praying. 
Formal  logic,  as  well  as  religious 
logic,  would  indicate  that  if  prayer 
were  necessary  in  order  to  bring  a 
revival  in  a  commtmity,  prayer  would 
likewise  be  necessary  in  order  to 
bring  a  revival  Into  an  individual 
heart.  Hence  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  evangelistic  intercession. 

It  is  probably  just  as  well  for  us 
to  confess  both  to  ourselves  and 
sometimes  to  the  subjects  of  our 
prayers  the  mystery  involved  in 
praying  for  others.  We  believe  in 
the  freedom  of  the  will;  and  we  be- 
lieve, also,  in  the  power  of  inter- 
cessory prayer.     But  just  the  rela- 


76        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

tion  that  our  prayer  may  take  to 
the  free  will  of  another  person  it 
is  diffictilt  to  say.  We  cotild  scarcely 
claim  that  our  praying  may  put 
compulsion  upon  him  and  do  away 
with  his  free  choice  of  salvation. 
Indeed,  if  we  felt  that  we  could 
turn  a  man  into  a  machine  by  our 
prayers,  it  is  doubtfiil  whether  we 
would  be  willing  to  take  that  fearful 
responsibility.  If  God  will  not  force 
a  man  to  himself,  we  may  be  sure 
that  he  will  not  assign  to  prayer  a 
power  which  he  himself  declines  to 
use.  Prayer  is  given  us  to  be  used 
within  the  realm  of  God's  will,  and 
God's  will  is  not  that  any  man 
should  be  compelled  into  his  king- 
dom. Whatever  else  intercessory 
prayer  may  accomplish,  there  still 
remains  one  personal  center,  one 
last  citadel  which  it  cannot  capture 
from  an  \inwilling  soul 

Still,  there  is  left  to  intercessory 
prayer  a  wide  field.     The  prophet 


THE  PARENT  77 

said  to  the  children  of  Israel,  "God 
forbid  that  I  shotild  sin  against  the 
Lord  in  ceasing  to  pray  for  you/* 
When  the  Israelites  knew  that  the 
form  of  the  old  friend  and  leader 
was  often  bowed  in  prayer  for  them, 
it  would  be  easier  for  them  to  do 
the  will  of  God,  harder  for  them 
to  fly  in  the  face  of  God's  servant 
and  of  God  himself.  Who  can  doubt 
that  a  mighty  wave  of  intercessory 
prayer  would  aid  in  making  the  at- 
mosphere in  which  men  would  more 
readily  yield  to  the  Lord?  Who, 
indeed,  has  not  felt  something  of 
this  sort  when  hundreds  of  heads 
were  bent  in  silent  prayer?  It  is 
much  as  if  we  passed  into  the 
climate  of  God.  Our  prayer  is 
doubtless  a  part  of  the  pressure  that 
the  Spirit  puts  upon  himian  hearts. 
There  may  be  a  sense  in  which  our 
prayer  is  borne  by  the  ministering 
Spirit  of  God  to  the  very  person 
for  whom  it  is  offered. 


78        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

For  the  Scripture  seems  to  indi- 
cate that  prayer  is  one  form  of 
service  which  we  can  use  for  each 
other.  It  may  fail  because  it  is  so 
often  used  alone  instead  of  with  its 
companion  forms  of  service.  The 
farmer  would  scarcely  expect  much 
from  his  acres  if  he  planted  and 
did  not  till  or  reap,  or  if  he  put 
his  furrows  in  the  sunshine  and  then 
decHned  to  provide  irrigation.  Each 
thing  is  necessary,  but  each  thing 
will  not  do  the  work  alone.  It  must 
be  even  so  with  prayer. 

God  has  certainly  decreed  that 
there  should  be  a  close  relation  be- 
tween prayer  and  work.  Some 
one  long  ago  said  that  "prayer  was 
the^  work  of  the  soul,  and  that 
work  was  the  prayer  of  the  hands." 
Unquestionably  sincere  prayer  drives 
to  work  for  the  object  prayed 
for.  Evangelistic  intercession  in  the 
closet,  if  it  be  genuine,  will  lead 
to  evangelistic  effort  in  the  open. 


THE  PARENT  79 

Thus  there  are  really  two  forms 
of  evangelism,  prayer  and  work.  It 
is  no  hazard  to  say  that  God  can 
give  small  heed  to  a  prayer  when 
the  one  who  offers  it  is  too  much 
afraid  of  man  to  do  the  other 
human  part  of  evangelism.  The 
path  of  true  prayer  will  lead  in 
due  season  to  the  very  face  of 
the  man  whom  we  would  lead  to 
Christ. 

Now  while  all  this  is  general,  it  still 
has  its  special  application  to  parents. 
It  may  be  that  our  very  nearness 
to  the  children  and  our  privilege  of 
association  with  them  will  lead  us 
to  neglect  prayer  in  their  behalf. 
Many  parents  would  confess  that 
their  most  earnest  prayers  for  the 
children  began  after  the  children 
went  away  from  the  home.  This 
must  mean  that  up  to  that  time  we 
had  allowed  our  direct  contact  with 
them  to  do  away  with  prayer  for 
them.      While   it    is   easy   to    offer 


8o        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

some  justification  for  this  course,  and 
even  to  plead  its  naturalness,  it  may 
yet  reveal  a  danger.  We  shoiild  pray 
for  our  children  while  they  are  still 
with  us.  We  shall  be  stronger  and 
more  persuasive  in  dealing  with 
them,  if  our  sincerity  be  strengthened 
by  frequent  appeals  to  God  in  their 
behalf.  At  the  family  altar  they 
should  be  straightly  brought  before 
the  throne  of  grace.  There  are  those 
who  say  that  the  weak  point  in 
modem  evangelism  has  been  its  lack 
of  vigorous  and  constant  intercessory 
prayer;  and  it  may  be  that  this 
is  the  weakness  of  family  evangel- 
ism. If  God  can  do  so  in  righteous- 
ness, he  will  not  deny  the  cry  or 
annul  the  effort  of  those  fathers  and 
mothers  who  intercede  and  work  for 
the  salvation  of  their  children. 


PART  THREE 
THE  PASTOR 


XIII.  PASTORAL  FORESIGHT 

In  the  previous  treatment  of  the 
boy  and  his  rehgion  we  have  dealt 
somewhat  with  general  principles, 
somewhat  with  the  boy  himself,  and 
somewhat  with  his  parents.  But 
there  is  another  party  to  the  duty 
of  evangelism  as  related  to  the  boy. 
That  party  is  the  pastor. 

The  first  equipment  of  the  pastor 
for  this  particular  work  is  the  ability 
to  see  the  long  issue  and  to  work 
for  it.  For  several  years  the  boy 
may  be  a  burden  rather  than  a 
carrier  of  burdens.  He  cannot  be  a 
heavy  contributor  to  the  finances  of 
the  church;  nor  has  he  had  sufficient 
experience  to  count  much  as  an  ad- 
viser. A  pastor  can  bring  many 
children  to  Christ  without  bringing 
many  dollars  into  the  church  treas- 
ury or  many  statesmen  into  his  own 
official  board.  Some  of  the  lower 
83 


84        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

motives  are  wholly  lacking  in  work 
for  children.  The  conversion  of  one 
rich  adult  may  mean  more  for  im- 
mediate finances  than  the  conver- 
sion of  scores  of  children  may  mean. 
If  a  pastor  should  be  a  ''hireling,'* 
to  use  Jesus' s  dreadful  and  piercing 
word,  the  call  of  the  children  is 
not  very  persuasive. 

But  if  a  pastor  be  thinking  of 
Christ's  cause,  as  that  cause  will  be 
in  his  to\vTi  ten  or  fifteen  years 
hence,  the  call  of  the  children  be- 
comes imperative.  Those  roUicking 
boys  will  be  men  then,  fathers  of 
families  themselves.  They  will  be 
holding  their  places  as  merchants, 
judges,  bankers,  doctors,  plumbers, 
builders.  The  middle-aged  pastor, 
wKen  he  returns  to  his  old  charge 
after  many  years,  gets  this  lesson  very 
impressively.  He  sees  in  the  church 
sense  the  meaning  of  that  word  out 
of  the  Bible,  "Instead  of  the  fathers 
shall  be  the  children."   Those  laugh- 


THE  PASTOR  85 

• 

ing  girls  of  the  old  days  are  matrons 
now,  leading  their  own  children  into 
the  services  of  the  church.  It  is  so 
easy  to  see  all  this  when  it  comes  as 
a  tribute  to  achievement  rather  than 
as  an  incentive  to  toil. 

Now  unless  a  man  be  a  seer  so 
that  he  can  get  that  vision  clearly, 
he  is  not  likely  to  be  an  earnest 
evangelist  for  children.  Immediate 
interests  will  engross  him.  Quicker 
harvests  will  entice  him.  The  Scrip- 
ture speaks  of  one  who  "is  blind 
and  cannot  see  afar  off."  The  words 
might  well  be  used  of  one  who 
neglects  to  win  children  for  Christ. 
The  short-sighted  pastor  who  does 
not  eagerly  gather  the  lambs  into 
the  fold  has  the  most  evil  form  of 
near-sightedness.  It  is  pointed  out 
occasionally  that  the  accounts  of  re- 
vivals reveal  this  lack  of  foresight. 
The  papers  say  ''sixty  conversions, 
mostly  adults."  In  reality  this  state- 
ment is  doubtless  meant  often  to  in- 


86        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

dicate  that  the  meetings  were  power- 
fill  enough  to  reach  and  convert  the 
older  people.  If  the  phrase  should 
be  taken  to  mean  that  the  conver- 
sion of  adults  was  more  important 
than  the  conversion  of  children,  we 
would  quarrel  with  its  meaning. 

For  God  has  given  us  too  many 
examples  to  leave  us  in  any  doubt 
as  to  the  effectiveness  of  his  work 
among  the  children.  Preachers  are 
fond  of  telling  that  David  Living- 
stone was  the  only  person  converted 
in  a  special  meeting,  and  that  the 
elders  deemed  the  revival  a  failure! 
If  only  they  had  been  blessed  with 
foresight!  They  would  have  seen 
that  in  claiming  that  small  boy  for 
Christ  their  pastor  was  getting  ready 
to -answer  the  outstretched  hands  of 
all  Ethiopia.  Without  doubt  it  was 
the  biggest  day's  work  that  pastor 
ever  did  for  his  Lord. 

We  are  aware  that  all  this  repre- 
sents a  truism.     But  we  are  aware, 


THE  PASTOR  87 

also,  that  trmsms  are  truisms  simply 
because  they  are  so  very  important 
in  their  meanings.  That  talk  about 
the  "future  generation"  is  really  very 
great  talk.  Sometimes  we  must  all 
regard  it  as  the  greatest  talk.  The 
children  are  our  bonds  toward  the 
coming  time.  They  are  the  only 
agents  through  whom  we  can  send 
our  life  on  into  the  earthly  life. 
They  are  the  only  hopes  we  may 
have  for  all  the  faith  we  hold  most 
dear,  for  all  the  causes  that  appeal 
to  the  eternal  best  in  our  own  hearts. 
God  saved  the  future  to  him- 
self by  means  of  the  Child  of  Beth- 
lehem and  Nazareth.  It  is  no  won- 
der that  his  own  Son  calls  us  so 
insistently  and  tenderly  to  the  care 
of  the  children.  Jesus  needs  to-day, 
and  always,  far-sighted  pastors  who 
will  claim  the  future  men  and 
women  by  claiming  the  present  boys 
and  girls.  Samuel  soon  becomes  a 
prophet.      John    soon    becomes   the 


88        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

forerunner  of  Christ.  Timotheus 
soon  stands  by  the  side  of  Paul 
in  the  plan  for  the  conquest  of  the 
world.  Beloved  pastors,  those  chil- 
dren are  your  earthly  futures! 

XIV.  PASTORAL  INTEREST 

It  is  not  often  that  our  relations 
with  people  begin  upon  a  distinctly 
religious  basis.  We  may  begin  our 
acquaintance  in  an  inquiry  room  or 
at  an  altar.  Usually,  however,  our 
early  approaches  to  a  life  are  social. 
We  are  "introduced."  Or  we  make 
our  own  way  forward  without  any 
formalities.  Before  Jesus  talked  to 
Zacchaeus  of  the  deeper  things  of 
the  Kingdom  he  dined  with  him, 
this  being  merely  the  prelude  to 
that  appeal  which  was  to  win  the 
publican  to  the  right  life.  Indeed, 
it  is  scarcely  natural  that  two  peo- 
ple, unknown  to  each  other  hitherto, 
should  begin  their  relations  by  dis- 


THE  PASTOR  89 

cussing  the  deepest  things.  When  a 
man's  first  word  to  us  relates  to 
our  duty  to  God  we  often  feel  that 
there  is  something  forced  in  the 
situation.  More  than  that,  we  may 
even  feel  that  the  man  is  putting 
God  at  a  disadvantage.  If  all  this 
seems  to  protect  religious  speech  un- 
dvily,  it  has  at  any  rate  one  virtue: 
it  makes  all  the  other  lines  of  life 
mere  preliminaries.  They  are  the 
approaches.  Religion  is  the  goal, 
the  very  temple  of  life.  We  may 
well  be  glad  that  it  has  so  many 
vestibules. 

However  important  this  social  ap- 
proach may  be  in  dealing  with  adults, 
it  becomes  especially  important  in 
dealing  with  boys.  Their  social  na- 
ture is  strong.  They  are  susceptible 
to  attention.  We  can  often  detect 
them  ''hanging  around,"  waiting  to 
be  recognized.  Their  slightly  older 
playmates  will  sometimes  accuse 
them  of   ''tagging  on,"   that  is,   of 


90        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

trying  to  get  into  company  where 
they  are  not  wanted.  This  is  itself 
merely  an  evidence  of  that  social  in- 
stinct that  craves  satisfaction.  Occa- 
sionally the  outreach  of  that  social 
instinct  is  so  eager  as  to  be  pathetic. 

That  eager  outreach  of  the  boy's 
social  life  is  the  preacher's  best 
chance  for  evangelism.  It  is  more 
than  a  chance:  it  is  an  invitation, 
extended  both  by  the  boy  himself 
and  by  the  God  who  made  the 
boy.  It  is  almost  as  if  the  boy  said: 
**Here  I  am  w^aiting  to  be  captured. 
I  am  just  bound  to  be  related  to 
folks.  That  is  the  reason  why  the 
poolroom  draws.  It  is  this  mood 
that  gives  the  saloon  its  opportimity. 
Cannot  the  preacher  see  that  I  am 
waiting  for  him  to  get  ahead  of  the 
bad  things?" 

Therefore,  the  first  great  pastoral 
need  in  dealing  with  the  boys  is  a 
warm  human  interest.  This  interest 
cannot   be   assumed.     The   average 


THE  PASTOR  91 

boy  is  an  unconscious  detective. 
Whether  he  can  quite  define  the 
situation  or  not,  he  will  know  the 
difference  between  the  man  who 
seeks  him  for  his  own  sake  and  for 
Christ's  sake,  and  the  man  who 
regards  him  as  a  candidate  for  church 
membership  and  so  as  a  trophy  of 
his  ministerial  cunning. 

So  the  interest  in  the  boy  must 
be  real  and  deep.  It  must  be  force- 
ful enough  to  lead  the  preacher  to 
write  him  a  letter  when  it  is  known 
that  the  boy  has  done  well  in  school 
or  has  graduated  with  credit  from 
the  grades.  It  must  follow  the  boy 
knowingly  through  the  varied  stages 
of  his  advancement,  whether  in 
scholarship  or  athletics  or  in  any 
other  natural  interest  of  youth.  One 
such  preacher  I  knew  years  ago. 
Long  after  he  had  left  the  pastorate 
in  a  certain  town  I  would  keep  find- 
ing full-grown  men  who  would  tell 
of  the   way   in   which   his   interest 


92        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

followed  them.  The  boys  never  for- 
got him.  When  they  reached  the 
seriousness  of  middle  age,  the  very- 
mention  of  this  preacher's  name  would 
at  once  make  them  kindle  with  loving 
remembrance.  And  many  of  them 
were  in  the  Kingdom  and  were  vitally 
connected  with  the  church  of  Christ 
because  this  pastor*s  hinnan  interest 
would  not  suffer  them  to  escape. 

It  all  comes  back,  of  course,  to 
the  one  thing  that  Saint  Paul  glorifies 
in  his  great  psalm.  All  else  fails 
but  love.  The  mere  word  'love" 
will  not  conquer  the  boy.  In  fact, 
it  is  likely  that  its  use  may  make 
him  self-conscious.  But  the  fact  of 
love  for  him  will  do  wonders  with 
hin\.  What  scholarship  will  not  do, 
and'  what  even  sacrificial  toil  will 
not  do,  and  what  martyrdom  will  not 
accomplish,  that  love  will  do  with 
that  socially  eager  youth.  There  is 
a  marginal  reading  somewhere  in  the 
Old    Testament    that    says,    "Thou 


THE  PASTOR  93 

hast  loved  me  out  of  the  pit."  The 
reference  is  to  the  way  in  which 
the  love  of  God  lifts  men  out  of 
their  moral  dangers.  The  servant  of 
God  can  in  his  sphere  love  men 
out  of  the  pit.  His  love  is  a  lifter. 
The  pit  waits  for  the  feet  of  the 
boy.  Sometimes  the  pit  seems  to 
conquer.  But  God  and  the  man 
of  God  can  conquer  the  pit.  The 
boy  can  be  lifted  from  its  darkness 
and  filth  by  that  loving  human  in- 
terest which  is  the  preacher's  surest 
way  to  the  heart  of  youth. 

XV.  PASTORAL  SACRIFICE 

Very  often  we  make  the  mistake 
of  assimiing  that  work  with  children 
is  easy.  Some  of  our  figures  of 
speech  encourage  this  mistake.  Chil- 
dren are  "plastic";  older  people  are 
"hardened."  The  figures  of  speech 
have  their  meaning,  but  we  should 
be  careful  not  to  make  them  into 


94        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

errors  rather  than  into  truths.  Or 
we  may  virtually  imply  that,  inas- 
much as  the  bending  of  the  twig 
makes  the  inclining  of  the  tree,  after 
once  you  have  given  the  twig  the 
right  direction,  the  whole  problem 
of  the  tree  is  solved.  Of  course 
this  is  far  from  correct.  Any  or- 
chardist  will  teach  us  more  wisely 
than  that. 

Nor  should  we  suppose  that  de- 
light and  ease  are  the  same  thing. 
We  sing  the  hymn, 

"Delightful  work,  young  souls  to  win  !" 

and  we  may  readily  pass  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  work  is  de- 
lightful because  it  is  easy.  We 
might  as  well  say  that,  because 
Stradivarius  enjoyed  making  violins, 
his  work  was  not  difficult!  Instead, 
we  find  that  he  often  poured  the 
glad  sacrifice  of  months  into  the 
making  of  a  single  instnmient.  The 
work  was  delightful,  not  because  it 


THE  PASTOR  95 

was  easy,  but  because  the  workman 
loved  the  result.  That  result  was 
the  "joy  that  was  set  before  him." 

There  is  a  general  consideration 
against  the  assimiption  that  work 
with  children  is  easy,  namely,  that 
no  great  work  is  ever  a  smooth  and 
jaunty  task.  The  gourd  that  grows 
over  night  will  wither  over  day. 
The  ease  of  its  development  is  the 
measure  of  its  ease  of  decay.  The 
big  things,  whether  they  be  Magna 
Charta,  Reformation,  Revolution,  or 
an  oak  tree,  are  not  hurriedly  grown. 
And  a  human  life  is  the  largest 
thing  provided  for  in  the  creation 
of  God.  It  would  be  strange  if  its 
best  and  finest  development  were  a 
product  easy  to  gain. 

Sometiraes,  also,  we  have  this  im- 
pression of  easy  spiritual  results  with 
children  because  some  one  else  does 
the  difficult  work  and  we  take  the 
result  as  a  mere  matter  of  course. 
We    are    surely    prone    to    do    this 


96        A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

with  the  intellectual  education  of  our 
children.  We  turn  the  little  people 
over  to  the  public  schools,  and  we 
do  not  always  appreciate  the  fact 
that  they  are  educated  only  be- 
cause teachers  feel  the  tug  and  strain 
many  hours  of  thousands  of  days. 
But  the  sacrifice  is  there  whether 
we  recognize  it  or  not.  Is  the  in- 
tellectual education  of  our  children 
easier  than  their  spiritual  education? 
Nor  is  it  any  overstatement  when 
we  say  that  to  win  and  hold  the  boy 
requires  peculiar  sacrifice.  The  boy 
must  meet  a  large  range  of  coarser 
temptation  from  which  the  girl  is 
freed.  She  seldom  hears  profanity; 
she  knows  little  of  the  lure  of  cigar- 
ettes; the  saloon  is  not  for  her;  she 
does  not  carry  a  latch-key  with  a 
view  to  late  hours!  But  all  these 
and  other  forms  of  allurement  coax 
the  boy.  It  may  not  be  hard  to 
get  him  to  start  in  the  Christian  life, 
if  indeed  he  has  left  his  first  love; 


THE  PASTOR  97 

yet  to  keep  him  in  the  way  of  Christ 
is  the  work  of  years.  It  cannot  be 
done  by  any  easy  wave  of  the  hand. 
It  is  not  accomplished  in  any  one 
brief  service.  The  work  that  truly 
evangelizes  the  boy  is  a  service  many 
years  in  length.  Any  other  thought 
is  superficial  and  dangerous.  It  is 
simply  a  big  blimder  to  think  that 
because  boys  are  easily  reached, 
they  are  easily  kept.  The  true 
evangelism  of  youth  is  the  most 
difficult  thing  because  it  is  the  most 
important  thing. 

The  niles  of  the  church  plainly 
reveal  where  the  difficulty  will  come. 
It  is  the  long  continuance  of  the 
work  that  costs  the  price.  One 
meeting  may  win  the  boy  to  an 
allegiance.  It  will  require  many 
meetings  to  train  and  confirm  him 
in  the  way  of  the  Lord.  It  is  just 
this  fact  that  leads  so  often  to  an 
answer  which,  as  every  conscientious 
pastor  feels,  is  a  poor  compromise 


98        A  BOY^S  RELIGION 

of  himself.  How  seldom  have  we 
been  able  to  answer  fully  and  un- 
equivocally the  question,  "Have  the 
rules  respecting  the  instruction  of 
children  been  observed?"  The  full 
answer  to  that  question  is  the  meas- 
vue  of  ftill  pastoral  duty.  That  an- 
swer can  be  won^only  out  of  sacrifice. 
The  lesson  would  not  be  complete 
without  saying  that  sacrifice  in  the 
Christian  sense  does  not  necessarily 
mean  strain  and  pain  and  sorrow. 
It  may  rather  mean  joy  and  glad- 
ness. Jesus  saw  joy  beyond  the 
cross.  If  Simon  the  Cyrenian  saw 
what  life  really  was,  he  felt  joy  be- 
neath the  cross.  The  load  of  life 
must  be  pulled  anyhow.  The  yoke 
of  Christ  can  be  cushioned  by  a 
love  of  the  task  and,  more  still,  by 
the  love  of  Him  who  calls  us  to 
the  task.  When  a  burden  is  actually 
his  burden,  he  himself  waits  to  fur- 
nish the  spirit  that  makes  the  easy 
yoke  and  the  light  load. 


PART  FOUR 
THE  TEACHER 


XVL  THE  TEACHER'S 
CHARACTER 

There  is  a  suggestive  verse  in 
one  of  the  Gospels  which  declares 
that  great  crowds  came  to  Bethany 
"not  for  Jesus'  sake  only,  but  that 
they  might  see  Lazarus  also  whom 
he  had  raised  from  the  dead.**  But 
they  were  thus  brought  into  contact 
with  the  Saviour.  Doubtless,  if  we 
could  discover  the  personal  histories 
of  that  olden  time,  we  would  find 
out  that  many  of  those  who  came 
to  see  Lazarus  saw  some  one  far 
greater,  and  even  that  they  expe- 
rienced that  spiritual  resurrection 
which  is  the  achievement  of  the 
Christian  faith. 

It  needs  only  a  quick  review  of 
our  early  experience  to  convince  us 
how  true  this  illustration  is.  We 
had  an  interest  in  some  person,  and 

lOI 


102      A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

this  interest  was  directly  transferred 
to  Christ.  It  led  us  to  some  part 
of  Bethany,  and  Jesus  was  there. 
Very  often  this  human  mediator  was 
a  Sunday  school  teacher.  We  found 
ere  long  that  this  teacher  had  been 
raised  from  the  death  of  trespasses 
and  sins.  We  believed  in  him.  His 
character  appealed  to  us  as  being 
high.  He  rang  true.  He  had  the 
first  essential  of  a  religious  teacher 
in  that  he  was  himself  religious. 
What  he  taught  was  not  contradicted 
by  what  he  did.  His  word  and  his 
deed  did  not  quarrel  with  each  other. 
We  knew  that  he  was  really  good. 

Now  character  has  an  industry 
that  is  all  its  own.  It  is  pervasive 
also.  Like  the  shadow  of  the  tree, 
it  often  goes  where  the  man  cannot 
go.  It  works  even  when  its  owner 
is  absent.  It  can  be  summoned  to 
the  witness  stand  in  the  twinkling 
of  an  eye.  It  is  influential  in  all 
realms,    but    it    is    particularly    in- 


THE  TEACHER  103 

fluential  in  that  realm  where  the 
first  object  is  to  produce  character. 
Like  produces  Hke,  we  say.  How 
can  darkness  make  light?  Or  how 
can  the  unclean  fountain  send  forth 
clean  waters?  Somehow  we  keep 
the  conviction  that  a  man's  work 
in  the  spiritual  region  cannot  possi- 
bly be  any  better  than  the  man. 
He  talks  when  he  is  silent.  He 
works  when  he  is  idle.  He  appears 
when  he  is  absent.  When  he  and 
his  word  clash  and  fight,  he  is  likely 
to  be  victor  as  against  his  word. 
If  he  be  a  good  man,  he  himself 
is  salt;  he  himself  is  light;  he  him- 
self is  truth;  he  himself  is  life. 
God  still  follows  his  own  highest 
example  and  uses  an  incarnation  in 
order  to  make  Himself  known.  Often 
a  Simday  school  teacher  is  that 
incarnation. 

Now  boys  have  keen  eyes  and 
quick  intuitions.  They  may  be  easily 
deceived  at  first,  but  in  due  season 


104      A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

they  will  know  the  teacher  for  what 
he  is.  In  this  respect  they  all  have 
the  advantages  or  disadvantages  of 
the  group  spirit.  What  one  does 
not  find  out  another  will  discover. 
Nor  are  they  good  keepers  of  se- 
crets. The  seal  of  silence  is  not 
yet  fastened  tightly  on  their  lips. 
The  teacher's  inconsistent  act,  seen 
by  one,  will  soon  be  known  by  all; 
and  after  that  the  teacher  must  get 
new  and  strong  credentials  ere  he 
will  be  trusted  again 

All  this  is  good  for  the  teacher  him- 
self. We  have  all  known  men  and 
women  who  were  saved  by  the  ne- 
cessity of  their  own  influence.  While 
they  were  trying  to  bring  the  boys 
to  ^Christ,  the  boys  brought  them  to 
the  same  Master.  The  teacher- 
evangelist  evangelized  himself.  He 
found  that  action  and  reaction  were 
equal  and  in  opposite  directions — 
in  Sunday  school  work  as  well  as 
in  physics.     The  prayer  of  his  life 


THE  TEACHER  105 

became  a  prayer  for  utter  consist- 
ency. He  longed  to  be  a  good  man 
because  he  knew  that  character  was 
the  most  efficient  evangelist.  Boys 
are  not  only  very  curious,  they  have 
likewise  a  large  himian  interest. 
They  can  be  brought  where  Jesus  is 
if  they  feel  that  they  can  there 
see  a  Lazarus  whom  Jesus  has  raised 
from  the  dead. 

Does  not  Jesus  himself  give  us 
this  lesson  in  its  fiillness?  He  is 
not  merely  the  gospel  of  God;  he  is 
the  evangelist  of  that  gospel.  It 
was  necessary  that  he  should  tell  us 
that  God  was  holy;  but  it  was  just 
as  necessary  that  he  should  show  us 
the  divine  holiness  in  his  own  life. 
If  the  world  should  lose  faith  in 
the  character  of  Jesus,  it  would 
quickly  lose  faith  in  the  gospel  of 
Jesus.  A  sinful  Messiah  could  not 
be  a  complete  Saviour.  Jesus  teaches 
the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life, 
because  he  is  the  way,   the  truth, 


io6      A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

and  the  life.  He  is  his  own  religion. 
There  is  a  certain  sense  in  which 
every  teacher  must  be  the  same. 

There  is,  moreover,  a  deep  hu- 
man conviction  on  this  point.  Peo- 
ple are  insistent  that  the  teachers  of 
youth  shall  not  be  corrupt.  They 
demand  this  of  public  school  teach- 
ers. It  is  a  well-known  fact  that 
an  evil  reputation  makes  a  disqual- 
ification for  secular  teaching.  How 
much  more  shall  we  make  this  high 
demand  for  spiritual  teaching? 

It  is  said  that  a  famous  infidel 
once  visited  the  home  of  a  saint. 
He  left  sooner  than  he  had  intended 
and  gave  as  his  reason  that,  if  he 
stayed  in  the  home  another  week, 
he  .would  become  a  Christian  in 
spite  of  himself!  The  saint's  char- 
acter was  doing  evangelistic  work. 
Shall  not  a  good  teacher's  character 
invite  a  class  of  impressionable  boys 
into  fellowship  with  Christ  and  into 
his  blessed  service? 


THE  TEACHER  107 

XVn.  THE  TEACHER'S 
KNOWLEDGE 

What  should  a  teacher  of  boys 
know  in  order  that  he  may  lead 
boys  into  the  religious  life?  An- 
swers to  this  question  will  vary 
according  to  the  viewpoints  of  those 
who  make  reply.  Some  will  make 
the  intellectual  emphasis  too  exclu- 
sive and  will  urge  a  rule  that  would 
drive  nine  tenths  of  our  Sunday 
school  teachers  from  their  work. 
Others  will  make  the  spiritual  em- 
phasis too  exclusive  and  will  urge 
a  rule  that  would  fill  our  schools 
with  teachers  that  have  zeal  without 
knowledge.  Still  others  would  com- 
bine the  two  emphases  and  would 
urge  a  nile  such  as  God  has  adopted 
in  selecting  the  great  leaders  of  his 
church.  Paul  and  Calvin  and  Luther 
and  Wesley  were  all  providential 
men,  and  they  were  all  both  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual.    They  knew 


io8      A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

with  their  minds,  and  they  felt 
with  their  hearts.  Sunday  school 
teachers  in  their  minor  realm  may 
not  be  able  to  be  great  thinkers  or 
great  mystics,  but  they  should  strive 
to  love  God  with  all  their  minds  and 
souls.  This  double  preparation  will 
make  them  more  efficient  as  evan- 
gelists of  boyhood. 

They  should  know  the  Bible. 
The  Scriptures  reveal  Jesus  as  the 
end  of  their  revelation.  He  him- 
self said  that  the  Scriptures  should 
be  searched  because  they  testified  of 
him.  He  was  speaking,  of  course, 
of  the  Old  Testament.  Still,  the 
reason  that  he  gave  for  searching 
the  Old  Scriptures  applies  far  more 
to  -the  New.  The  statement  is  often 
made  that,  while  more  Bibles  are 
sold  than  ever  before,  fewer  Bibles 
are  read  and  studied.  Probably 
there  is  no  accurate  way  of  finding 
out  whether  this  is  so.  If  it  be  so, 
then   there  is  all   the  more  reason 


THE  TEACHER  109 

why  the  Sunday  school  teacher 
should  join  with  the  pastor  and 
parent  in  the  effort  to  fix  the  Bible 
in  the  mind  and  heart  of  youth. 
Deeper  than  this  is  the  fact  that 
the  Bible  seems  to  have  a  peculiar 
power  of  conviction.  It  is  quick 
and  powerful.  It  does  pierce.  It 
is  a  discemer  of  the  thoughts  and 
intents  of  the  heart.  The  Bible 
is  the  greatest  evangelist,  and  the 
teacher  should  know  the  Book  so 
well  as  to  give  that  evangelist  a 
full  chance  to  do  its  work. 

Teachers  should  know  the  boy. 
We  must  all  feel  sometimes  a  sense 
of  resentment  when  some  academic 
psychologist  looks  learned  and  pro- 
ceeds to  instruct  those  who  have 
been  dealing  in  practical  psychology 
for  many  years.  There  are  now 
in  existence  statistical  tables  show- 
ing certain  tendencies  in  the  life 
of  childhood.  If  we  are  ever  tempted 
to  feel  that  much  of  this  work  is 


no      A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

theoretical  and  mechanical,  we  may 
still  get  its  main  value.  We  must 
know  the  boy  ere  we  can  effectively 
teach  the  boy.  It  will  not  do  to 
try  to  win  him  with  figures  of 
speech  based  on  wee  femininity. 
Miniattire  doll  houses  and  small 
sewing  kits  belong  to  girls'  classes. 
The  teacher  must  know  how  to  se- 
lect the  boy's  Bible  from  the  big 
Bible.  There  are  portions  of  the 
Book  that  are  peculiarly  fitted  to 
appeal  to  boy  life.  Those  portions 
cannot  be  foimd  and  used  unless 
the  teacher  knows  the  boy  as  well 
as  the  Book.  At  the  close  of  an 
address  to  boys  months  ago,  a  little 
fellow  said,  as  he  plunged  from  the 
room,  "Gee!  that  man  knows  all 
abbut  us,  doesn't  he?"  This  meant 
that  the  speaker  was  a  practical 
Christian  psychologist.  He  had  at 
least  a  part  of  the  equipment  for 
winning  boys  to  Christ.  He  knew 
where  boys  lived,  and  he  knew  how 


THE  TEACHER  iii 

to  speak  to  them  in  the  terms  of 
their  own  Hves. 

Teachers  should  know  Christ. 
Strange  as  it  may  seem,  it  is  pos- 
sible for  them  to  know  the  Bible 
with  technical  accuracy  without 
knowing  him.  In  his  later  years 
Phillips  Brooks  wrote  to  a  friend 
a  transcript  of  his  own  personal 
experience  with  the  Master.  He 
said  that  all  of  life's  experiences 
more  and  more  took  their  meaning 
from  Christ.  He  added  that  this 
was  no  mere  figure  of  speech.  *'He 
knows  me,  and  I  know  him.  It 
is  the  realest  thing  in  the  world. 
And  one  wonders  what  it  will  grow 
to  as  the  years  move  on."  The 
man  who  wrote  those  words  knew 
Christ.  He  was  thus  invincibly  sure 
of  his  gospel.  The  boy  is  a  very 
real  person.  The  more  the  teacher 
really  knows  Christ,  the  more  will 
the  boy  feel  the  sense  of  reality  in 
the    teaching.      This    knowledge    of 


112      A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

Christ  comes  only  from  life  with 
him.  Peter  gave  his  confession  at 
Caesarea  Philippi  because  he  had 
been  living  with  the  Master.  Others, 
seeing  Jesus's  tears,  might  say  that 
he  was  Jeremias.  Yet  others,  seeing 
his  stern  rebuke  of  sin,  might  say 
that  he  was  Elias.  Still  others,  hear- 
ing only  his  gospel  of  repentance, 
might  say  that  he  was  John  the 
Baptist.  But  Peter,  having  lived 
those  months  with  the  Lord,  reached 
the  fuller  and  truer  creed  and  de- 
clared that  Jesus  was  "the  Christ, 
the  Son  of  the  living  God."  His 
knowledge  of  Christ  came  from  his 
life  with  Christ.  Only  so  can  any 
teacher  of  youth  come  to  an  ac- 
quaintanceship with  the  Lord  that 
will  make  him  an  efficient  evangelist 
of  boys. 

Without  doubt,  also,  we  come  to 
this  knowledge  of  Christ  for  the 
inspiration  that  will  send  us  to  the 
proper  study  of  the   Bible   and  of 


THE  TEACHER  113 

the  boy.  Only  the  love  of  Christ 
has  enough  constraint  to  keep  one 
faithfiil  for  years  to  the  holy  and 
serious  task  of  evangelizing  youth. 
When  once  we  really  know  him  we 
shall  not  rush  through  a  few  minutes* 
study  of  the  lesson  and  on  to  a 
hasty  and  superficial  dealing  with 
the  boy.  We  shall,  rather,  teach  as 
if  the  Great  Teacher  watched  both 
our  preparation  and  our  approach 
to  the  soul  of  boyhood.  Then  we 
shall  be  more  skillful  in  bringing 
many  a  little  lad  into  the  presence 
of  Him  who  can  multiply  his  powers 
and  possessions  so  that  later  multi- 
tudes shall  be  fed  by  his  truth. 

XVni.  THE  TEACHER'S 
PURPOSE 

Sometimes  we  must  all  think  that 
the  story  of  Philip  and  the  eunuch, 
as  we  have  it  recorded  in  the  Acts, 
is  a  kind  of  biblical  description  of 


114      A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

a  real  Sunday  school.  Philip  seems 
to  have  been  a  good  man.  He  was 
likewise  a  knowing  man  in  the 
Scriptirres.  But  his  character  and 
his  knowledge  were  both  turned  to 
a  very  definite  aim.  Ere  long  his 
pupil  was  asking,  ''What  doth  hinder 
me  to  be  baptized?"  The  door  of 
the  church  stood  open  on  that  desert 
way.  The  teacher  had  met  his  pur- 
pose and  so  had  come  to  victory. 

All  the  elements  of  a  class  are 
present  in  this  account.  We  may 
allow  that  the  teacher  is  imusually 
direct  and  purposeful,  and  that  the 
pupil  is  unusually  responsive.  In  a 
way  we  may  say  that  both  atti- 
tudes are  well-nigh  ideal.  But  the 
big-  point  is  that  the  teacher  was 
after  the  main  thing.  The  end  of 
the  Scripttires  was  Christ,  and  the 
goal  of  the  teacher  was  Christ.  The 
outer  way  was  desert,  but  the  spir- 
itual way  proved  a  garden  path 
whereby  grew  the  tree  of  life.     The 


THE  TEACHER  115 

chariot  moved,  but  a  soul  moved 
even  more  significantly.  Had  Philip 
dalHed  with  a  literary  question  the 
opportunity  had  passed.  Had  he 
discussed  the  abstract  nature  of 
prophecy,  the  interview  would  have 
issued  into  abstraction.  As  it  was, 
Philip  reached  Christ  in  his  teach- 
ing, and  the  eunuch  reached  Christ 
in  his  faith.  The  lesson  ended  in 
the  pledge  of  baptismal  waters. 

The  eternal  lesson  for  passing 
teachers  is  all  here,  even  though 
the  itinerant  school  was  rather  un- 
conventional, and  even  though  the 
pupil  was  full-grown.  The  aim  of 
all  Simday  school  teaching  is  Christ. 
Until  the  teacher  is  dominated  and 
possessed  by  that  one  purpose,  he 
is  not  a  genuine  teacher.  The  ideal- 
ist may  find  many  weak  points  in 
Sunday  school  work.  He  would 
doubtless  be  compelled  to  admit 
that  the  very  weakest  point  was 
the    lack    of    a    definite    and    con- 


ii6      A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

Sliming  purpose  on  the  part  of  many 
teachers. 

That  definiteness  is  the  conquer- 
ing mood  elsewhere.  The  architect, 
the  engineer,  the  banker,  the  pohti- 
cian,  the  carpenter,  the  plumber — 
all  these  know  what  they  wish  to 
do,  and  they  go  toward  a  clear 
goal.  If  they  do  not  do  so,  their 
work  is  marred  and  they  class  them- 
selves with  the  inefficients.  The 
world's  work  is  judged  by  the  way 
in  which  it  meets  its  purpose.  The 
teacher's  work  must  be  estimated  by 
the  same  rule.  Now  without  doubt 
the  teacher's  main  purpose  is  to 
keep  or  to  bring  the  scholars  within 
a  vital  and  obedient  relation  to 
Jesus  Christ.  If  a  teacher  does  that, 
he  succeeds.  If  a  teacher  does  not 
do  that,  he  fails.  That  purpose  is 
his  compass,  and  it  alone  can  keep 
him  from  drifting.  That  purpose  is 
his  North  Star,  and  it  alone  can 
keep   him   from   wandering.      That 


THE  TEACHER  117 

purpose  is  his  life,  and  it  alone 
can  prevent  the  death  of  the  teacher 
as  a  teacher. 

Therefore,  before  every  class  comes 
to  its  session,  the  teacher  shotild  ask 
himself,  ''Why  am  I  to  teach  to- 
day?" After  the  class  adjotims,  the 
question  should  be,  ''Why  did  I 
teach  to-day?"  While  the  class  is 
in  session,  the  question  should  be, 
"Why  do  I  teach  now?"  Nothing 
short  of  this  sacred  definiteness  will 
suffice.  Without  it  teaching  becomes 
general,  hazy,  secular,  entertaining, 
frivolous — anything  save  efficiently 
spiritual. 

And  this  purpose  will  select  its 
own  material.  Strange  as  it  may 
seem,  it  may  employ  a  chariot  ride 
as  a  vehicle  toward  the  Highest. 
It  may  sometimes  choose  desert 
rather  than  city  for  its  field.  The 
purpose  elects  ways  and  means,  as 
well  as  the  subject  matter  of  teach- 
ing.     It   accommodates    speech    to 


ii8      A  BOY'S  RELIGION 

the  pupil,  working  its  way  adroitly 
to  the  center  of  life.  It  goes  not 
too  rapidly  lest  it  leave  the  pupil 
so  far  behind  that  he  cannot  hear 
the  saving  word.  The  purpose  be- 
comes a  glowing  passion.  It  gives 
knowledge  heat  as  well  as  light. 
It  gives  character  power  as  well  as 
beauty.  It  is  the  teacher's  Geth- 
semane  and  his  transfiguration;  his 
cross  and  his  crown. 

Nor  is  all  this  a  bit  of  vain 
idealization.  We  have  all  known 
just  such  teachers — men  and  women 
touched  into  a  divine  success  by 
the  power  and  definiteness  of  their 
evangelistic  purpose  toward  their 
scholars.  Sometimes  these  teachers 
have  been  learned;  sometimes  they 
have  been  far  from  technical  scholar- 
ship. But  they  have  all  been  par- 
takers of  the  one  Spirit.  Whether 
we  find  them  on  the  lonely  road 
that  leads  down  to  Gaza,  or  in  the 
ecclesiastical    palace    on    the    city's 


THE  TEACHER  119 

hill,  they  are  the  Spirit's  partners 
in  that  blessed  task  of  bringing 
young  life  into  the  company  of  the 
redeeming  Lord.  The  prayer  of  each 
teacher  shoiild  be,  ''God,  make  me 
such!"  The  prayer  of  each  church 
should  be,  ''God,  give  us  such!" 


Princeton,  Theolo< 


ical  Seminarv,. Libraries 


7Toi2  01208  8003 


DATE  DUE 


GAYLORD  #3523PI        Printed  in  USA 


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